


I could take on the World but lose you

by Omeganixtra



Series: Chronicles of Imra Trevelyan and Garrett Hawke [2]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, Blood Magic, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Death, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Romance, Sexual Content, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-26
Updated: 2019-09-07
Packaged: 2019-09-28 02:51:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 20
Words: 38,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17174474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Omeganixtra/pseuds/Omeganixtra
Summary: Hawke fucked up, he knows that.Kirkwall iskind ofhis fault for not doing enough, not stopping Anders when all the signs had been there if he'd justlooked.How he's going to fix it is still beyond him, but damn it if he ain't gonna try.A continuation of "Unconventional Relationships"





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> note 12/3-19: changed narration

**Act 1**

* * *

 

“You alright, brother?”

Carver sits down and looks at him carefully, like one would a wild animal. The time on the road has not been kind to his Templar brother, not after everything with the Carta and the Wardens and _fucking Corypheus_. At this point Garrett is sorely tempted to just turn himself in, if only to catch a damn break from the constant wariness from being a fugitive.

They had split from Isabela and Fenris not two days ago after their little band of stragglers had reached Markham, with Fenris going northwest to skirt the borders with Tevinter and Nevarra while Isabela had headed back towards Ostwick, probably to sneak aboard some ship, take control and pirate away to her heart’s content.

Varric had returned to Kirkwall following the Corypheus-ordeal and Garrett hasn't heard from him since then. It irks him more than he would care to admit. Not knowing what was happening with his friends is apparently more tearing than one would believe.

Or, maybe it's just the situation.

“Garrett!”

Carver’s impatient voice, snappish and ragged from days without proper rest, drags him out of his melancholy stupor and Garrett lifts his head to glare at his brother from below the dark hood.

“ _What_ ?” he spits out and scowls, though it is probably hidden in his bushy beard since Carver doesn't even _flinch_ at his tone of voice. Either that or his asshole of a brother has been taught to mask just about everything behind a blank face while he was in the Kirkwall Circle of Magi.

“We should leave tonight. I don’t trust the locals not to pry.”

“ _Eugh_ ,” Garrett grumbles and drains the last of the ale he has in his hand. “You’re probably right ‘bout that.”

A chipper tune comes from the troubadour standing by the fire of the tavern, and a roar of joy erupts from an otherwise tired-looking group of miners nursing their own ales not far from where the Hawkes are sitting. Garrett catches the eye of one of the serving wenches and raises his drained tankard, nodding in appreciation when the woman returns not long after with a new tankard and takes the empty one.

“Where can we go?” Carver asks as soon as the woman has gone off to take care of another table.

Carver’s question is a good one, because they might have travelled from spot to spot for the last few months or so, but their faces are still quite recognizable along the parts of Kirkwall’s borders that connects with the other city-states. It sure has made travelling a pain in the rear, even if they are no longer as recognizable due to the lack of witty dwarves and brooding elves, and it nearly pains Garrett just to think about it. _Eurgh_ , but he has to. He knows that too well.

“Orlais? Maybe Ferelden? Fuck, I don’t _know_ , Carver!” Garrett sighs and hides his head in his hands, feeling the beginnings of a pounding headache blossom just behind his temples.

“Going to Ferelden wouldn’t be my… first choice,” Carver answers, words eerily familiar to Garrett as he had said nearly the same thing oh-so-many years ago when the Blight ran rampant through Ferelden and his family needed a safe haven. “No matter what, we need to act now and we need to act _fast_. If we wait too long, it will be like the Blight all over again.”

“Not for you,” Garrett shakes his head. “You are a Templar, Carver. You’ll be accepted back into the Order, probably re-stationed somewhere in the ass-end of _nowhere_ , but you’ll have a home.”

“Probably, but then who would keep your sorry arse out of trouble? I can’t just leave you to yourself or you’ll be caught by either the Templars or some band of peasants who have found out who you are.”

Garrett lets out a snort and puts on an expression of offense, “You really think that they would be able to hold me for long before I’d be off again?” He then looks at Carver with a much more somber face, “No, what really matters to me right now is finding somewhere, even if it is temporary, to call home.”

“ _Ferelden_ was home,” Carver spits at him, “Then the Blight came and home became Kirkwall, the Free Marches! I have to admit, I really don’t want to leave home behind again.”

Guilt fills Garrett’s chest, makes it hard to breathe as if there are cobwebs in his lungs.

“I know.”

The silence is thick between them, neither brother knowing or wanting to say anything.

“If we really must go to Ferelden, we’ll need to head back to Ostwick,” Carver says carefully, his voice barely above a whisper but it still makes Garrett seize up, almost uncomfortably so. “We cannot risk going back to Kirkwall and hop on a ship from there, and Hercinia or Wycome are out of the question. I am _not_ wandering through another barely travelled forest and nearly getting killed _again_.”

“Spoilsport,” Garrett huffs, but there is no fire behind his words. Carver is right, even if he is loath to admit it, and avoiding Ostwick for the foreseeable future is a luxury that he cannot afford right now. Or maybe forever, he really doesn't have all that many choices, if he's being totally honest here.

It's been _weeks_ since he dragged Imra there, since the shit with Corypheus blew over, but he's still a wanted man by many a government and dragging a (former, his mind hisses treacherously) lover with him across the continent is far from a good idea when one is in such a precarious situation.

“Get some sleep,” he says instead and raises his head to look at Carver. “We’ll go in a few hours, you should rest while you can, brother dear.” It is simply an acceptance of Carver’s suggestion of their route, because even if he doesn't like it, Garrett is not so far gone that he will not listen to reason.

Trekking through the entire forested regions of the Free Marches is all well and good if there were a safe haven to return to. Somewhere to rest and stock up, but they no longer have that luxury. Ostwick’s harbor ought to be busy enough for both him and Carver to get passage on a ship headed for Ferelden without much trouble, and after that it would simply be a matter of finding somewhere to lay low until all of this blows over, maybe send a letter or two to Varric through obscure sources, so his friend would know that that both of the Hawkes were all alright.

“I would say the same, but I know that you won’t listen. Don’t sit down here brooding the whole time, you hear me?” Carver snorts but stands up nonetheless and heads towards the dingy room that the two of them have rented for the evening.

Garrett is left behind with his luke-warm ale, looking miserable all on his own, no doubt, but for once he welcomes it. He welcomes the on-and-off silence, the relative quiet when one ignores the shouts or raised voices around him from the tavern’s other patrons.

The only thought that truly presses on his mind is of Ostwick—of Imra and what might have transpired since the last time he saw her. Their parting had been anything but smooth and he _hated_ himself whenever he thought back to her voice crying out as he stalked away from her, but it had been necessary for both her and himself.

To see her again, to hear her voice and feel her in his arms, the thought is as tempting as it is distracting and right now he really can not afford distractions.

No, he can not afford to give in, not now when he has his brother to look after and make sure was safe.

Garrett has made his decision. He won't not give in, not now when he is so close to finding even a small amount of peace in this tumultuous world he somehow helped create.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The brothers reach Ostwick — they are met with a surprise
> 
> note 12/3-19: changed narration

When Garrett and Carver finally arrives at Ostwick, the city is nothing like either of them have expected it to be.

They are stopped at the city gates by a grim-faced guardsman who is about to begin telling them of new regulations, of orders from the Bann himself and is about to soundly reject them entry inside when Carver pulls rank as a bloody Templar, only to be met with cheers and public adoration.

Carver’s utter confusion is borderline hysterical, and Garrett would have been rolling on the floor with laughter at his brother’s face, if their situation had been any different.

“You haven’t heard the news, good Sers?” a weary guardsman asks and tips up the front of his helm to get a better look at them.

"Unfortunately not," Carver replies curtly and gestures to the vacant streets behind the large portcullis. "Is there a reason why the streets are looking so deserted?"

It would appear that while they have been busy trying to track down the Carta cartel and stop Corypheus from breaking out of his Warden prison, the world has been very busy indeed.

“Word is that the mages tried to vote for annulling the Circles of Magi,” the guardsman says as he leads Garrett and Carver inside Ostwick’s gates. “The Chantry was quick to forbid the mages to meet like that ever again, but the damage was already done.”

“How so? Do mages even have the authority to destroy the Circles?” Carver asks, his face growing more and more grim with every step he takes.

“You must have heard what happened in Kirkwall, Sers,” their escort sighs and waves them down a path leading away from the main road. “Mages running rampant, Templars going mad. Because of all the shit to the west, the Chantry has become restless, and the Clerics are little better! They’ve appointed a new Grand Cleric to Kirkwall, and she is _ruthless_!”

“What do you mean with ‘ruthless’?” Garrett asks, dread beginning to dig its roots into his chest as he thinks of sweet Merrill who opted to remain in Kirkwall despite the danger, sweet Merrill who thought that staying and helping the Alienage would be the best course of action for her.

Maker, he hopes that Aveline has it in her to keep an eye on the elf. And Varric to bribe every single snitch down there, can't forget that.

“She has pushed for annulling all the Circles across the Free Marches, starting with the one in Kirkwall and then spreading from there. Last we heard was that the special company of Templars issued to annul the Circles had come to Markham and completed their task there. They are on their way here next.”

“I have heard nothing of this, but then again, I have been on the road for the past few months,” Carver speaks slowly and looks back to meet Garrett’s nearly-panicked expression. “It would seem that my travelling companion and I have missed much.”

The guardsman nods glumly and kicks a broken crate out of their way before he steps aside to show the two of them an outlook over the city of Ostwick.

The city’s Circle dominates over the rest of the city-state, tall and looming with dark brickwork and twisted spires that would make even the Gallows appear friendlier—at least in daylight. However, it is not the tower itself that draws both Garrett’s and Carver’s immediate attention.

It is the battlefield between it and the rest of Ostwick that easily steals their breath away.

Even from this distance, they are able to see piles of corpses that litters the streets, garbage and scorched debris from explosions—no doubt of magical nature—are thrown all over, and in the distance, hoots and shrieks can be heard echoing between the streets. Looters, probably. The angry, orange spots that dots the hazy view of the city speaks of where massive pyres are probably either blocking paths or raging through the streets.

“The mages in the tower refused to bend to the new Grand Cleric,” the guardsman explains, his grim exterior suddenly a lot more understandable. “They took over the Circle and has since spread to most of the city, with the exception of the Noble Quarter, but the Bann is hard pressed to do anything about all of this when he is holed up in the estates to the north of here.”

“Maker’s breath,” Carver rasps as he stares out over the city-turned-battlefield. “What of the civilians?”

“Most of them has either fled the city or holed up in the Noble Quarter,” is the curt, weary answer that they are given. “One of the Bann’s children ordered the gates open long enough for those who survived the first onslaught. Last time we heard from them was a raven that was sent two weeks ago.”

“How did it come to this? Have no one sent word of what is happening?!” Carver then explodes, eyes narrow in anger and face a mix between red and purple as he tries to get a grasp of the situation that they are dealing with.

“Why do you think that special Templar delegation is headed to Ostwick next?” the guardsman squawks in a mixture of exasperation and amusement, maybe, Garrett's not really sure here, over Carver’s sudden outburst, but in all honesty, Garrett himself is only mere moments short of reacting just like Carver is.

He had left Imra here—he had left Imra in a _fucking powder keg_ of a city and he had been too ignorant to notice what was happening around him before it was too late.

He stops listening as Carver takes on his ‘Templar Voice’ as Varric dubbed it back in the day, immediately assuming command like he had been born to do it, and waves the guardsman back to where he had originally met them, leaving the two brothers standing alone at the overlook.

“Brother, I know what you’re thinking, but—”

“How long do you think it would take for us to get to the noble quarter and get them out of there?”

“Brother, it would be just us against an army. What you’re thinking is suicide!”

“Ha! If that is how your line of thought goes with every outing it’s a wonder you get anything done,” Garrett snipes at his brother, anxiety making his stomach churn around in circles. “We’ve made do with less. I mean, I got out of the Deep Roads with little more than a reject-Warden, an elf with rage-issues, and the dwarf that corralled me into the whole shitfest, with nothing but deep mushrooms for breakfast, lunch and dinner.”

“Garrett, it took you over six months to complete a job that should have taken no longer than two and a half months, top,” Carver buds in, the little shit.

Garrett pays no heed to his brother and the frustration that said brother has perfected into an artform over their many years together. “Eh, semantics.”

“In all seriousness, we really do need a plan for this. Chances are that the harbor is completely closed down right now.”

“Probably.”

“And we really don’t have any other cities to head to right now?”

“Not on your life, Carver.”

“Thought so,” his brother huffs and rolls his shoulders, the Circle-issued plates clinking together as metal rubbs against metal. “Just for the record, I solely blame you for this.”

“ _Me_?!” Garrett gapes, putting on a stricken expression. “Carver, you _wound_ me with such crass words! Hast thou no faith in me, brother mine?”

“This always happens wherever you go, don’t even bother denying it.”

“I never planned on it.”

“Good. Now, let’s get to work.”

And the brothers descends upon the city of Ostwick, weapons in hand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Constructive critisms would be greatly appreciated


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> note 12/3-19: changed narration

The city is even worse up close.

A mixture of garbage, corpses and smoke clogs both Garrett and Carver’s noses as they carefully makes their way through ruined streets. Crows circle in cluttered groups, whole flocks of them that could probably have rivalled the ones that was seen back in Kirkwall following the explosion.

With every step he took, Garrett feels nausea rise and fall periodically as he looks around.

Not even three months ago he had passed through the city with Imra in the middle of the night, both of them lacking in proper rest and tired beyond measure, but back then there had been light in the windows and a lively atmosphere had blanketed the entire city.

_"Garrett, please, what is going on? Why are we here?"_

_"Hush, I'll explain soon enough."_

Having returned makes memories of Kirkwall’s chaos rise up once more, but Garrett shakes his head violently and spits at the ground.

“Brother?”

He looks up from the ground to meet Carver’s worried eyes. “Yeah?”

“We need a plan before we go in any further.”

 _Urgh_. Plans.

“Carver, be honest with me, when have things ever gone according to plan whenever I have been involved?”

“Oh for the love of—that’s what I mean!” his brother hisses back at him, “We cannot just go in there, weapons drawn, and hope for the best. We need to know what to work towards!”

Garrett blinks, “Why, I thought the goal was clear! Get to the noble quarters, get them out of there in one piece and then get our arses on a boat to Ferelden.”

Carver looks as if he is only moments away from letting out a very frustrated scream.

“Garrett,” he sighs, rubbing at his temples in exhasperation. “Nothing is ever that simple. How do you propose that we get them out of here?”

“The harbor didn’t look too damaged from the vantage point,” Garrett muses as he stretches his arms far above his head. “And if my eyes didn’t deceive me, then it looked as if there were still a few ships lying in the harbor. We could use them to sail out of here and dock further down along the coast.”

“You think it could be this easy?”

Garrett snickers, “Every once in a while, we’re allowed to be lucky, aren’t we, Carver?”

“I suppose…”

“Besides, if there aren’t still a few sailors left in this city then I suppose we’ll just have to wing it in the end!”

“Oh Maker,” Carver groans and runs a hand down his face in exasperation.

* * *

When Garrett and Carver arrive at the gates leading into the nobles’ quarter of the city they are met with heavy barricades, runes of warding and probably what amounts to a battalion’s worth of arrows trained on them the moment they come close enough.

“Who goes there?” a voice calls down from on top of the gate, no doubt from a captain of the guard, but the question is a good one.

Neither he or Carver could simply tell them their identities or they might be driven from the city, maybe even killed by the guards currently pointing all those arrows at them, and they couldn’t simply say that they had come to help without giving a damn good reason.

“Reinforcements before the main group of Templars reach Ostwick!” Carver then cries, bringing Garrett out of his ponderous mood. “My brother and I have been working with the Order back in Kirkwall and were sent here early to scope out the situation!”

His brother’s words seems to relax the archers, at least only for a moment or two, since a few of the guards slowly lowered their bows and arrows, no longer pointing straight at their heads.

“What proof do you have of this? How do we know that this isn’t some ploy created by those blasted mages?”

Carver reaches for one of the pouches that hangs from his belt and pulls out a sigil depicting the flaming sword of the Templar Ordre, “I am Carver of the Kirkwall Templar Order. When we heard what had happened in Ostwick, my brother and I were quick to give our aid.”

“And your brother?” the guardsman demands. “He a Templar too?”

“No, mercenary,” Carver calls back and gestures to Garrett with a handwave. “He’s a good sort and does not require much beyond a bed and warm food.”

“Well, we’re bloody hard pressed for help at the moment, so I shan’t turn you lads away. Maker knows we need all the aid we can muster against those _savages_ ,” the guardsman grumbles before he turns. “Someone fetch the Lady Trevelyan and inform her of our new guests, and get that bloody gate open. Now!”

Both Carver and Garrett snaps to attention at the mention of ‘Lady Trevelyan’, the two brothers glancing at each other as the gate opens up before them.

“You think that Imra—?”

“No,” Garrett cuts off Carver with a brief, curt answer. “No, she doesn’t have a violent bone in her entire body. It’s likely one of her siblings.”

“Trevelyan has siblings?”

“Indeed she does,” Garrett nods briefly as he rolls his shoulders and heads towards the small opening in the gate that the guardsmen have allowed. “Youngest of five if I’m remembering correctly.”

“Right, now please let me do the talking when we get inside,” Carver asks as he hurries after his brother. “They think we were sent by the Templar Order and seeing as I’m the only one of us who has knowledge of said Order, it’d be best if you kept to yourself.”

“For once I agree with you, brother dear.”

Inside the gates, Carver and Garrett are met by the captain of the guard from on top of the gates and a woman clad in heavy plated armor from top to toe.

Sharp angular features dominates her face, currently set in a rather austere expression, and the tight braid that keeps all strands of hair firmly in place only serves to get the point across that this is a woman on a mission and she is not to be bothered by trivial things. As he and Carver comes closer, he watches as she looks them over and raises a single eyebrow. Probably because of their clothes. And their appearance. And their body odour. 

“Lady Trevelyan, these are the lads I told you about,” the captain says, nodding in greeting to the brothers before he turns his attention back on the woman. “I present to you Ser Carver of the Kirkwall-branch of the Templar Order, and his brother.”

“I see,” the woman, Lady Trevelyan, speaks curtly as she glances at each of them. “I was not aware that the Order was already on their way to aid Ostwick. We have not heard much from the outer walls or even from my brothers and sisters in arms who managed to escape from the Circle Tower after the mages went mad.”

Well, just their luck that the commanding officer within this festering shithole of a city would be a Templar, and a highly ranked one at that, if her attitude is any indication.

“It was unknown if any of the refugees from Ostwick harbored any of the mages,” Carver answers back, his own voice strangely clinical, too much like a Templar, for Garrett to truly feel comfortable. “My superiors thought it best if our arrival was kept secret.”

“Indeed,” Lady Trevelyan rubs her chin at his brother’s answer before moving to instead look Garrett straight in the eye, “And what of you? Awfully noble for a mercenary to do the bidding of the Templar Order. Forgive me if I find the story a little unlikely.”

“I’m not doing it for the Templars,” Garrett answers back smartly and ignores the subtle jab that Carver's gauntlet makes at his side, “I’m doing this for my little brother. Someone has to keep his hide safe, after all.”

“A line of thought that I know all too well,” the noblewoman nods with a faint smirk on her lips before she turns and waves the two of them along with her. “Very well then, you are, of course, a welcome addition to our city’s defenses.”

“My Lady,” Carver asks, making Lady Trevelyan stop and look back at him and Garrett, “Might we know your name?”

“Yes, I suppose a proper introduction is in order," she gives them a brief nod as she turns to face them proper. "I am Lady Evelyn Trevelyan, Knight-Captain of Ostwick’s Circle of Magi. Now come with me, I shall properly inform you of the situation at hand.”

* * *

 What had once been a meeting hall for the nobles of Ostwick has now been turned into part head-quarter and part lazaret. Along one wall are piles of goods, armor and weapons stacked as neatly and high as possible, while on the other end of the building, screens and curtains have been raised to give the sick and injured a place to rest. The space in-between is filled with runners, soldiers, civilians and everything else that a place looking like a war camp ought to have.

“Love what you’ve done with the place,” Garrett comments rather dryly as he thinks back to darkened skies but a whole city without death and fire dominating the streets.

“You have visited Ostwick before?” Evelyn asks half-interested as she navigates through the stream of people milling through the building, her presence making most take a step or two back.

“Yes, I’ve… passed through not long ago.”

“Hmm, at least you were able to see the city before it fell into the chaos outside,” the Knight-Captain muses, finally stopping in front of a closed door, “Ser Carver, if you would be so kind as to report to my quartermaster. He will see you outfitted with a ration of lyrium and have both you and your brother assigned to a bunk. I assume that you would prefer to stay together?”

“If possible, Knight-Captain. I shall do ask you ask straight away,” Carver speaks after a brief pause, no doubt not at all comfortable with separating from Garrett, but nonetheless he presses a fisted hand to his shoulder and gives a polite bow before he turns on his heel and heads in the direction that his superior has pointed in.

“Serrah, if you would care to step inside?” Evelyn gestures towards Garrett who looks right back at the templar in front of him with a raised eyebrow.

“Is something the matter?”

“Of course not. I simply have a few points that I wish to discuss with you here in my office before I put you to work, nothing else.”

Not believing the woman in front of him for even a second, Garrett still steps inside through the door that Evelyn is holding open, taking a quick look around the room. Behind him he hears the door close as Evelyn enters the room right behind him. Apprehension gathers in the pit of his stomach somewhat fierce, but Garrett is a Hawke, damnit, and it'll make a shitload more than this to get him down.

He's taken down templars before, when needed. He's an old pro at this, just watch him.

“I did not think that I would see you here again so soon, Champion,” Evelyn speaks calmly as she walks past him and sits down at the lone desk in the middle of the room to look over some papers lying on the surface, but Garrett’s sense of apprehension turns straight into dread at her words.

“W-what?” he asks dumbly, his voice flat as he stares at the woman in front of him, “I-I mean… err… that is—!”

Evelyn sighs as she glances up from the paperwork to view his rather dumbstruck expression. “Come now, did you really think me thick enough to not notice that the Champion of Kirkwall was standing in front of me?” she asks calmly while pouring herself a glass of wine, “My sister did write quite often, even if she never mentioned it to you, Serrah Hawke.”

Garrett straightens his posture, standing as straight as a board. Not for the first time he wishes that he has a staff on his back instead of a flimsy dagger and his backpack. “What do you want?”

“What I want is to know why you’re here, Garrett Hawke,” Evelyn says, not unkindly even if her expression seems to sour the longer that she keeps her eyes trained on him, “One would think that you would prefer not to be anywhere near Ostwick, given what happened the last time you were here.”

“You heard about that?”

“Hardly a soul in the estate missed it with the way she was screaming and cursing your name from here to the Anderfels and back again.”

Garrett winces at that and shivers when the atmosphere seems to frost over from the way Evelyn is now glaring at him.

“I need to know if you are going to become a problem.”

“You have my word that I won’t. All that Carver and I came here to do was take ship from here to Ferelden, but this little mage-situation of yours seems to have put a stop to that.”

Evelyn nods at that, seemingly satisfied with his answer, “Good. Now, Serrah, if you would do as I asked your brother and find our quartermaster, we can begin working on getting the two of you out there and doing some good.”

Just like that the atmosphere changes from ice cold and threatening to jovial, almost camaraderie-esque instead. It makes him blink in surprise for a moment before he nods, slowly, at the templar's words.

“Looking forward to helping out, Knight-Captain,” Garrett says politely before turning around and stalking out of the office, a strange taste left in his mouth as he turns his back on a woman who would no doubt smite his ass on a moment’s notice if she felt it necessary.

“Likewise,” her voice echoes slightly behind him before the door closed, leaving Garrett strangely winded as soon as he is finally out of her sight.

He lets out a breath, surprised for a moment that he hasn't even paid attention to the fact that he has been holding it in, and lets a shiver wreck through his body before setting out to find his brother.

If anyone could help him gain an overview of the situation, it would be Carver.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thoughts on the chapter, constructive critisms and so on are, of course, very welcome


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> note 12/3-19: changed narration

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has been re-uploaded with edits, as I was informed by a beta that I had forgotten to add several things in both this, and the former chapter.

Evening has descended upon Ostwick, the sinking sun painting the sky and clouds in warm hues of oranges, pinks and purples despite the chilly weather. Slowly but surely the mildly warm summers were beginning to give way to autumn, even here in the Free Marches.

Standing not far from the heavy doors leading into the headquarters of the Ostwick Guard, Imra looks out over her home with a resigned, almost dull look in her eyes.

“You should not be out here without your coat, Imra,” Evelyn says softly as she walks up beside her sister and hands over a wooly blanket to her. “With this weather you never know if sickness follows.”

“At this point I would say that sickness might be a blessing in disguise,” Imra speaks quietly, looking at the sunset with a resigned look in her eyes. “At least that way death would be quicker, even painless. Almost like magic.”

“Do not jest of such things, sister,” Evelyn huffs curtly as she wraps the blanket around Imra, tightening it with a knot before stepping away. “It is most unbecoming of a lady such as yourself.”

Letting out a huff of her own, Imra reaches up to tuck a few loose strands of hair back into place behind her ear. “Even so, it would be preferable than to lie in a bunk, bleeding and in pain, whilst waiting for death to finally come and have mercy on you.”

Evelyn sighs and rubs the bridge of her nose, “Imra…”

“No!” her little sister snaps. “Evelyn, you are letting people die even though we have the means to save them!”

“I cannot in good faith let the mages into the infirmary, Imra. Templar escort or not, I would have the people slamming down my door the very moment that I sanction such means!”

“Not all of the mages are out to ravage Ostwick! Enchanter Lydia and her students came to us, _willingly_ I might add, because they were afraid of their colleagues! It is a waste of their time and mine for them to only brew potions, sort through supplies and enchanting the patrollers’ weapons.”

“Spirit Healers are at even higher risk of possession than other mages, Imra; to let them go unsupervised—”

“I never said that you had to let them work unsupervised!”

“—would only cause chaos. No matter how you look at it, the situation does not change simply because you wish it!” Evelyn continues sharply, as if she has never been interrupted. “I am in charge of what remains, Imra, and therefore the final decisions fall to me. My decision regarding letting the mages into the infirmary still stands, and it will not change in the foreseeable future.”

“No matter your decision I still believe it to be moronic,” is Imra’s terse reply as she tightens the grip she has around the edges of her woolen blanket. “It is nothing but a waste of precious resources.”

“Being in charge means that the decisions you take cannot be for personal gain. You must always think of the people and their interests before your own. That does not mean that I always agree with what needs to be done.”

“Like the Circle?” Imra spits harshly and glares at her sister. “You do not agree with the decision to completely annul the rebellious mages, and yet you spoke to its' advange anyway?”

“That is different!”

“How so?”

“It simply is, Imra! The rebel mages have ruined Ostwick, they have no restraints and must therefore be stopped!”

“Then what about the others? What about the Enchanter and her students, must they too be put to the sword when all of this is over?”

“Of course not, they will be allowed to return and rebuild.”

“But they are mages, yes? An Annulment of a Circle means executing every single mage that belongs to said Circle, not just those who defy the templars assigned to said Circle!"

“It will not happen!” Evelyn firmly states, green eyes narrowing at her sister.

Red splotches appear Imra’s cheeks as she continues on with her tirade, “But you just said that—!”

“Cease with your damn twisting of my words immediately!” Evelyn finally snaps and snatches out her hand to grasp around Imra’s wrist. “I am the commanding officer of this operation and you will speak to me with respect, regardless of the fact that you and I are bound by blood as sisters! The world is not kind to those who choose to see everything through rose-colored glass, and if you are unable to accept or deal with that, then I suggest that you scurry off to those in charge of evacuating the remaining civilians!”

Both sisters stare at each other, neither backing down. To an onlooker they would have appeared almost as mirror images of each other.

“Maker, why is it that you cannot see what this is doing to you, Imra?” Evelyn pleads with a shake of her head. “Ever since you came back from Kirkwall things have… changed. You were not always so willful, so intent on questioning every single thing I did.”

“I saw the Templars strike down innocents, I watched as they did _nothing_ , and I saw mages commit just as many crimes,” Imra snaps at her sister before she yanks her wrist out of the other’s grip. “You call me naïve, but it is not me who is naïve and living in a dream. The world is changed. It did the very moment that Anders let that bomb go off and destroy Kirkwall’s Chantry. That you are unwilling to see the world for what it truly is becoming only saddens me.”

 “So you refuse to take a side, then?” Evelyn asks coolly as she straightens her back. “I should not be surprised. You have been living among the rabble so long that their ideas has rubbed off on you.”

“And exactly _what_ is that supposed to mean, sister?”

Evelyn’s eyes are hard as she glares down at her sister. “What it _means_ , Imra, is that we should have realized that you were a lost cause from the moment you were thrown at our doorsteps like a child unwanted by its parents.”

Imra stiffens at her sister’s words. “I see.”

Without another word she unfurls the woolen blanket that Evelyn had given her and throws it at her sister before she turns around to march back inside. Evelyn watches her leave with darkened eyes, tired eyes in truth, as she too turns from her sibling to instead watch the sky turn from orange and pinks to dark blue and purple as the sun disappears below the horizon.

_What did they do to you?_

The question hads echoed inside her mind for far, far too long. What had happened to Imra for her to be equal parts distrustful of both mages _and_ templars? Rarely had the subject of Kirkwall been discussed since she had come home, save for when their father had locked himself in the study with Imra for an entire day. When they had exited the study, both had looked harried and tired to the bone, but no one had asked what had discussed behind closed doors or what was to be done with the wayward, rebellious daughter of Bann Trevelyan.

Perhaps one ought to have done that back then.

“Maker, guide me,” Evelyn sighs and stares down at her hands as if they somehow held the truth. “Guide me through this trial so that I might lead those too weak to sanctuary.”

“He won’t listen, much less even _answer_ , if that’s what you are worried about.”

Evelyn whirls around when a deep, rumbling voice comes from somewhere behind her.

She sees Garrett step out from the shadows. He looks at her with burning eyes, no doubt furious from the words he must have witnessed the two sisters exchange.

“Champion.”

“Knight-Captain.”

Mage and Templar glare at each other from across the courtyard. It is only the two of them standing out here, as the cold, frigid autumn air has forced most people inside for the night. Even the patrols stand closer to the braziers this evening.

“What you said to her was cruel and unnecessary.”

“What I said to her was the _truth_ ,” Evelyn counters sharply. “She has changed, and not for the better. I do not know what lies you whispered in her ear, _mage_ , but I will rid her off them, even if it is the last thing I do!”

“Is that a threat? After I come to you, quite willingly, I might add, you threaten me for an imagined attack on your family?”

“Is it imaginative if it has happened?”

Garrett’s eyes narrows, “It is when it is baseless. I did nothing to her that she did not consent to, except for bringing her here, and I am starting to regret that further and further with every passing moment.”

A barking laugh is his answer from Evelyn.

“If that is the case then go after her! Show me that you are the better person and answer for what you did to her!”

Garrett draws slightly back into the shadows at Evelyn’s words, a scowl twisting his face.

“I do not need to answer to you, it is not you who I wronged but her, Imra.”

Another bout of laughter erupts from Evelyn.

“Is that what you tell yourself at night, when you have to defend your actions against the demons whispering sweet nothings into your ear? If so, then I dearly hope that your argumentative skills are better than what you are showing me here, _Hawke_.”

Her last words are spat at him as if he is nothing to her, maybe less than the dirt that stains the soles of her boots.

With one last poisonous look, Evelyn turns on her heel and marches inside, leaving Garrett to stand alone in the courtyard. The rumble of thunder echoes somewhere in the distance and bright flashes of lightning briefly lights up the sky to show the gathering group of dark rainclouds far above Ostwick.

He keeps standing in that courtyard, though.

Even as the heavens open up above him and drenches the world in torrents of rain.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Would you look at that, an update!

The morning is bleak and pale and terrible.

The next day is even worse.

The day after that one is horrible beyond compare.

A blade has been stuck in his hand and orders to help clear out the homes closest to the noble quarters has been given and received, so there the Champion of Kirkwall is, stuck shoveling out debris from a hut like the farmer he always thought he’d be back before magic and Blight and _everything else_.

Not the most glorious job he’s ever had to do, but neither was his first year in Kirkwall, so there’s that.

“You’re looking sunny this morning, brother.”

Garrett looks up from his shoveling to spot Carver standing in the doorway with a way too satisfied grin on his face from seeing Garrett at old-fashioned work. He grunts before slamming the shovel down into the ground and straightens his back with a groan.

“What, this too hard on your poor back?”

“Shut your hole, Carver,” Garrett grumbles and scratches the back of his head, wincing when the stench of sweat and dirt hits his nose. “Maker’s breath, but I stink. I’m hoarding all the water later tonight.”

“Ah, you’ve noticed it too, then?”

“Shut it!”

Carver walks over to his brother, his face losing the mirthful expression he was sporting a few moments ago. “Brother, there is something that I need to talk to you about, it is regarding Ostwick.”

“What, now?”

“Do you not have the time to spare?”

“I don’t know, doesn’t really seem to be the best of moments, but when is it ever?” Garrett sighs and leans against the rickety, soot-stained wall. “What is it, then?”

Carver swallows before releasing his greatsword and letting it rest against the wall as well, only then sitting down himself. “I have been asked by the Knight-Captain to go out into Ostwick city and patrol for the rebel mages.”

Garrett freezes. For a moment all he can hear is a thunderous roar that echoed in his ears. Then rage blossomed in his chest.

“No. No fucking way.”

Carver groans, “Garrett, there’s nothing to do about this. I have my orders and will be marching out within the hour. I thought it better to tell you myself than for you to know through the Knight-Captain, or some of the other Templars here, even. I know that you don’t particularly _like_ each other.”

“That’s putting it _mildly_ ,” Garrett spits harshly, scowling at the ground.

These last few days have actually been quite fine as long as he and that bitch Evelyn hasn’t crossed paths. He’s kept to himself, or stayed close to his brother whenever there wasn’t the odd job around the quarter to deal with, very keenly intent on staying out of Evelyn’s, as well as Imra’s, way. It still strikes him as quite odd that Evelyn has held her tongue for as long as she has regarding the fact that both Carver and he are in Ostwick. A lesser, vindictive woman would probably have spilled their secret long ago, but not her. Either Evelyn is hoping that there is something to gain from keeping Garrett here in Ostwick, or she genuinely doesn’t wish to spend one single thought on why he’s actually here, as long as he gets out of her city sooner, rather than later.

And as soon as the harbor district is out of the rebel mages hands, he will be.

“Don’t worry about me, brother. I’ll be _fine_.”

Garrett only shakes his head. “I don’t doubt that you’ll be fine, but damn it, you’re my baby brother, Carver. I’ll be dead before I cease worrying about you.”

“Don’t storm any keeps while I’m gone, would you?” Carver huffs in mock annyance, an eyebrow raised as he looks up at his brother. “Garrett, promise me that you’ll behave, will you?”

“I promise, Carver. Doubt they’d let me stay if I caused trouble.”

“That’s what worrying me. You do nothing _but_ cause trouble.”

“Now, I take offense to that! Most of the time trouble finds _me_ , not the other way around, thank you very much!”

“And what about those few times where it actually _is_ the other way around?”

“I refuse to say anything without a legal representative, Ser Templar!” Garrett sniffs and runs a hand through his hair to comb the messy strands out of his eyes. He ignores how it comes away sticky and full of dust. “You’ll simply have to trust my world.”

Carver lets out a short bout of laughter at Garrett’s antics, prompting a grin in return from his older brother.

“I’ll be off, then. Try not to wreck too much while I’m gone.”

“When will you be back?”

“At nighttime, maybe early morning if something holds up the patrol.”

“I see. Well, once more, be safe out there, brother mine.”

“Likewise to you, Garrett.”

Carver smiles, gives a mock of a salute to Garrett and then saunters out with his greatsword in hand, not looking back.

Garrett only smiles at his brother’s turned back and picks up his shovel once more. He still has a house to clear.

* * *

Carver’s patrol isn’t back by nightfall. They aren’t back the next day either.

Garrett paces in the barracks, gets done shoveling debris out from the first house and is assigned to another.

Two more days passes. A patrol is dispatched to look for them. They return with the corpse of one of the Ostwick Templars later that evening.

Still no sign of Carver.

Garrett continues pacing.

* * *

He’s only just gotten back from shoveling in house number two when the chaos erupts.

The door to the barracks is thrown open hard enough for a sharp _crack_ to echo throughout the entire building, which is only followed by a desperate howl.

“ _WE NEED A HEALER_!”

All he sees is a templar holding up someone else who has an almost too familiar mop of black hair and Garrett _snaps_.

In an instant he’s across the hall, rips out his brother from the templar’s grasp and is grabbing whatever he can of his brother, as he tries to assess the damage. Blood is everywhere—from shallow cuts, from a few open wounds—hair smells charred, his breastplate is dented, sword is _missing_?!

By Maferath’s hairy ballsack, what happened out there?

“Carver? _Carver_?!”

His voice is getting frantic, almost scarily so as he’s looking at his brother’s pale, pained face.

“Gare… _healer_ …” is all that Carver grunts out before Garrett is pushed out of the way.

“Get that man out of his armor and into a proper bed!”

Imra—sweet, docile Imra who last he saw her was crying her eyes out, who had shied away from blood when he first got to know her, who—commands like she was born to do it, all business and demanding as she guides the templars carrying Carver to the nearest empty bed and promptly enlists them to get the dratted armor out of the way.

Garrett follows right behind them, skin pale and clammy as he stares at his now-unconscious little brother.

He looks so small without that armor. Small like a sparrow and not the hawk that the family is named after.

Oh Maker, he feels faint. Please, don’t let him faint in the middle of everything.

“He can’t die, he can’t die, he _can’t_!” is all that Garrett can squeeze out of his throat. Everything is spinning, the thunder from days ago is back, ringing between his ears until it’s all he can do to not just raise his hands and block it out, block it out _block it out_.

“Garrett.”

He looks up when a familiar voice breaks him out of this weird blurry world that he finds himself trapped in, unable to help, unable to do anything but stare at his brother, unable to—he stares at Imra who’s looking back at him with worry in her eyes and a strained smile. A hand wraps around his upper arm, squeezes gently before it falls away.

“I will do my best. You have my word.”

She disappears behind the curtain and Garrett falls to his knees, staring at the beige canvas like a lost little boy.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Double update because I can, that's why

It’s close to midnight, if not even later than that, and Garrett has eyes only for his brother currently sleeping in front of him, still too pale for him to breathe easy, but Carver’s skin is no longer clammy and his face is not distorted in pain any longer.

Carver is blissfully unaware of the tizzy he has his brother in, snoring away like a babe in its mother’s arms, and Garrett cannot help but smile at him. He reaches out to brush his little brother’s bangs out of the way, fingertips lingering to feel for a fever before drawing away once more.

Everything is fine.

It has to.

It just _has to_.

The sound of curtains being pulled aside has him glance off to the side, but what he sees makes him freeze.

Imra’s shifting between looking at him and Carver, stepping closer to feel the younger man’s forehead just like Garrett did a few moments ago, and steps away with a somber smile on her face when she feels satisfied. She is wearing naught else but a simple dress beneath her worn healer’s garb, hair falling out of the plaid she had tied it back into, and yet she is the most beautiful creature that Garrett has ever laid eyes upon in this moment.

“We need to talk,” she says quietly and he nods.

Without saying a word he stands from Carver’s bedside and walks past her, leads the two of them outside into the night. Once out there he’s lost for a moment, not all that familiar with Ostwick as of yet but Imra takes the lead without a word, and tugs him with her to a nearby overhang with a bench. Below them the razed city stretches out. Bonfires are flickering in the distance, and even as far up as they are here in the noble quarter, the screams and hoots of looters, rebel mages and who knows what else, still reach them.

Silence ensues between him and Imra. Andraste’s ass, this is probably going to get a lot more awkward than he can handle right now.

“When were you going to tell me that you were here?”

He winces. She sounds tired and used, probably from all the shouting she had to do earlier when she directed surgeons and runners for supplies. She still looks like a wonder in his eyes, though.

 “I don’t know.” Garrett sits down on the bench with folded hands and hunched shoulders, now looking rather intently at the tiles on the floor instead of up at her.

“I see,” she sighs. “Why are you here, then?”

“Plan was for Carver and I to catch a ship heading for Ferelden, the mages rebelling here kind of put a little stop to that.”

“It seems that way.”

She sits down beside him and unexpectedly takes one of his hands in hers, squeezing it tight. He glances at her out of the corner of his eye, is too hesitant to say anything and instead just lets her do as she pleases.

“Before you go… will you tell me why?”

“Why?”

“Why you left me here,” she says quietly as she turns his hand in her grasp, fingertips trailing over one of the blood runes he has tattooed on his lower arm, frowning as she traces the patterns. “Garrett, I just want to _understand_.”

“You’ll think me stupid.”

A mirthless laugh escapes her when she looks from the runes to him instead, “Since when has that ever stopped me when it comes to getting through to you?”

“Shit, I don’t even know where to begin,” he rasps out, yanks his hand out of her grasp rather suddenly and then buries his face in his hands. “Void take me, but I don’t know what to do about this. I-I _can’t_ Imra, not now, not when Carver’s…”

“Shh,” Imra shushes him. “ _Breathe_ , Garrett.”

He breathes. It helps _slightly_.

“Now, Carver is not going to die,” she continues on. “I called in a Spirit Healer and they helped with most of the necessary work. I’ve made sure to slather him in salve and dose him with a painkiller. He will not suffer whilst under my care.”

“Thought that your sister didn’t want those Spirit Healers working in here.”

“Well, Evelyn can take that opinion and stick it where the sun doesn’t shine,” Imra huffs. Garrett almost chokes at her choice of words. “I am done letting people die of mage burns and stab wounds because everyone is too scared of magic right now. I should have been done with that a long, long time ago, and that fault lies with me. But I swear on my life, Carver will not die. Not now, not when it is something that I can help prevent.”

Garrett looks up from his hands and catches her eyes. His hand moves back to grasp at hers and interlaces with hers. He squeezes and felt a smile begin to bloom when she does the same.

“Thank you…”

“I may be furious with you, but that does not mean that I am going to let that influence whether or not I will save a life,” she says quietly and lowers her gaze to where their fingers are interlaced. “You… you’re still very much important to me, Garrett. These months apart hasn’t changed that.”

“I shouldn’t have left you here, though,” Garrett rasps out. Without a thought he raised their joined hands and presses his lips to the back of her hand. She lets out a quiet noise when his beard tickles her skin, and his lips twitch. “I thought that you’d be safe here, that everything would be fine when I was done with what I had to do… urgh, I was such a fucking _fool_.”

“You’re allowed to be a fool, Garrett. You’re only human.”

“I’m the Champion of fucking Kirkwall, Imra. If I don’t have my shit together, then who’s going to do it, then?”

“Garrett, there is more to you than a damn title you didn’t even want in the first place!” Imra sighs. She’s too good for him, he thinks.

“Sure doesn’t feel that way sometimes. Everyone I associate with falls away at some point, ‘s been like that since I came to that fucking city.”

“You’re not in that ‘fucking city’ anymore, Garrett, you don’t need to be the Champion anymore!”

“Easier said than done, Imra!” he snaps back at her, then winces. “No, sorry—I-I didn’t mean to snap at you, I just—"

She stops him with a hand pressing against his cheek. “I… I still want you to tell me what happened, but when you’re ready and not just because I’m impatient. Think it through, and tell me when you want to talk about it, because… because I’m not ready to give up on you. I love you, Garrett. That hasn’t changed.”

“How?”

“How can I still love you?”

“I went behind your back, I _left you_ , and you still love me?”

“You don’t have to make it sound so ridiculous. Like I said, I’m still furious with you, that hasn’t changed, but I want to understand why you did what you did. So, take your time, and when you feel ready come find me,” she let her fingers linger against his cheek for a moment longer before she moves to stand up from the bench they have been sharing, fingers slipping from his skin and he internally mourns the loss of contact.

It’s been too long since anyone—she—touched him like that.

He watches as she hesitates for a moment, her eyes filling with uncertainty before being replaced with steely resolve, and she bends down. Her lips connect with the cheek her hand caressed only just a few moments ago and he feels his face warm.

“You’re blushing,” she giggles when she pulls away from him and Garrett lowers his head to grumble at the floorboards. Her giggles quickly turn to a soft gasp when he in return reaches out and drags her closer to him.

He rests his forehead against her stomach, arms wrapping around her and holding her tight. He’s covered in dirt, sweat and who knows what else, but apparently that’s okay, if only for this moment, because not long after he feels soft hands run through his shaggy hair. She is only running her hands through his hair, yet it feels nothing short of heavenly, and damn it but he’s only human. It’s alright to be greedy every once in a while.

“I swear to you, I will _never_ leave you again,” he croaks out, voice muffled against her clothes, but still very much distinguishable. “ _I swear it_.”

Her response is to tighten her grip on him, and he can only return. When they part to look at each other he can only be pleased to note that red splotches are beginning to spread from her cheeks and down her neck. A smile twitches to life on his lips, causing Imra to raise an eyebrow in question.

A moment passes.

“Look who’s blushing now.”

She hits him over the head this time, hiccupping from laughter.

* * *

They talk.

A lot.

Everything and nothing gets its turn, from him and Carver travelling between one shitty town to the next in order to stay away from templars, knights or just Chantry folk in general, to her fighting with and hissing at most of her family in order for her to work and study under those few mages in the Ostwick Circle who have studied healing.

Her passion for the craft has not lessened in their time together, and Garrett cannot help but feel proud of her, of what she has accomplished in the time that they have been apart.

In some way it is almost surreal how much they have to say to each other as soon as they’ve opened up once more, but before he knows it the sun is beginning to rise in the east and both of them are just about ready to drop dead.

They walk back to the infirmary, stopping a few feet away from Carver’s bed.

“I… I should get some sleep,” she murmurs after a yawn has forced its way out and looks around his body to take a glance at his still-slumbering brother.

“Get some rest, we’ll both still be here when you wake up,” Garrett smiles at her and can’t resist copying her actions from much earlier, letting his fingers drag along her cheek and linger for maybe a tad too long. “I promise you that.”

“Then I will hold you to your promise, Serrah Hawke,” she smiles right back at him and her head moves to press her lips against his fingers. Her expression has turned more and more coy with every moment they’ve stolen together over the course of these last many hours, and he would be lying if he said that it wasn’t having an effect on her.

She is as addictive as when he kissed her that very first time.

This is easy. This being the touching and caressing and sweet, innocent kisses. Neither of them are alright in the slightest with what happened so many months ago, but he’s not ready to tell what happened, to explain what happened with the Wardens, with that ancient Magister of Dumat, with the fucking Carta, even.

All of this is just one big mess.

And this time she hasn’t forgiven him. There’s that.

But she is talking to him, still wants to be with him, and damn it if that ain’t like a message straight from Andraste, the Maker, whoever is smiling down on him at this very moment.

Maybe it’s going to be alright in the end.

Just maybe.


	7. Chapter 7

No one expects it, but the mages are a lot more organized than they have let on.

The scary thing is that none of those in the remaining militia have any idea of what’s happening before it is already far too late to do anything.

If Garrett had _known_ , if he had been able to do more he would have without a moment’s hesitation, but now it’s later, too late to do anything but pray or fight or give up.

It begins in the small hours of the morning.

He’s sitting by the gate, leaning on his sword and yawning. It’s last watch and everyone’s tired to the bone, but dawn is less than an hour away and it is still cool enough weather to keep them from falling asleep.

A crow shrieks somewhere in the air above them, a hoarse sound that echoes between the derelict buildings. It’s barely enough to keep Garrett from letting his eyes close a little longer, but open them again he does.

It’s still too late, though.

A deafening sound replaces the crow as a searing burst of fire rams into the stone-wall beside him. It brutally jerks Garrett awake and he flails briefly as the chair he was sitting on flips backwards and takes him with it to the ground. His face feels raw, his beard smells burnt and singed and the few places where his skin peeks out beneath his armor feels dry enough to crumble if he’d touch it too roughly.

Silence ensues right after, a ringing silence that makes everything seem like a fever haze and there’s a brief moment where he just lies there on the ground, surrounded by fire and flame, until the silence is pierced with a shrill scream of panic and everything rushes in, all at once, like a flood.

He scrambles to get up, to see what is happening but everything is flames and smoke and it’s burning his eyes.

He coughs when smoke gets into his lungs instead of air, spits out the grim taste and struggles to loosen the cord around his shirt, as if that will make air flow in easier.

It doesn’t, but he’s so far away that he barely pays attention to it.

More screams are joining the first one now and Garrett once more tries to reorient himself. He yanks off the gloves he was wearing, feels the debris and stonework underneath the palms of his hands, and pushes off the ground. It’s shaky work, slow work, but everything is going to be fine, he’s sure of that.

Just one step at a time, easy does it now.

He’s staggering his way through the wrecked gate, confused and disoriented as people are screaming and running around, slamming into him and slowing him down. When he looks up, all he can see are writhing bodies on the ground and in the horde of civilians and soldiers running around like headless chickens in a coop.

A crackling sound erupts above him and the crackling smell of magic fills the air.

Mages.

Maker’s balls, the mages are attacking.

_The fucking mages are attacking_!

Carver and Imra are at the headquarters, one still bedridden for observation, the other responsible for the healer’s ward. Both of them practically defenseless.

_Fuck_.

His staggering walk turns into a mad sprint for the headquarters of the militia. He pushes people out of the way with little to no consideration, his mind honing in on the sole fact that his family is threatened. Someone shouts at him when he finally reaches the building, but Garrett barely glances at whoever the armored fool behind him is before he’s heading straight for the door.

The still-cracking embers of a fireball stretches across the heavy oaken door, which is hanging slightly ajar on the hinges. He bashes the thing open with his shoulder first and wheezes when the collide forces the breath from his lungs, but he’s barely caught it before he’s running again, this time headed straight for the lazaret.

“Carver, Imra?! _Answer me_!” he bellows as he’s making his way towards the ratty, now-singed, curtains. No one answers.

Inside everything is chaos, albeit much more compact than outside where there’s room to run around in blind panic. Inside the cramped building there’s barely enough space to draw in too deep of a breath on a good day—with this chaos there’s not even enough space to take a normal breath.

The one good thing is that there’s no fire in the building. However, everything else is utter chaos with bodies lying haphazardly on the floor, covered in blood and other body fluids.

He ignores it.

He cannot focus on this now, not when both his brother and his—and Imra are probably still in here, trapped by the rebel mages.

When he stumbles over an outstretched arm, he lets out a curse and catches himself with his hands before the floor and his face are intimately introduced, but it’s enough of a distraction to not see one of the rebels lurking in the shadows.

Something big and _hard_ slams into him and Garrett flies through the air until his front hits one of the stone walls. A pained wheeze slips out past his lips when he hits the wall and he roll over onto his back.

“Oh, Maker’s breath, _Garrett_!”

That’s Imra’s voice.

His head snaps open, still blurred from the pain, but soon enough there’s sweet, soft hands against his cheeks. Through his still-blurred vision he can make out a dark outline and two green spots above him—her hair and eyes, no doubt.

“‘ey there,” he wheezes out and coughs—he can still taste the soot in the air.

“Garrett, you have to get up, we have to _go_!” Imra’s voice is turning shrill, scared and everything is still spinning inside his head.

“Well, well, what do we have here?”

New voices join the chaos that’s rummaging inside his head but Garrett struggles to focus on what’s going on while Imra goes completely still.

“Please, we have injured and civilians in here,” Imra pleads with them. “There’s nothing to gain from slaughtering senselessly!”

A rough scratchy laughter echoes in the hall.

“Oh, she thinks she’s clever, does she? Did the Templars care whether we were innocent when the decree to annul all Circles across the Free Marches was decreed by the Grand Cleric?” the voice from before shouts. “Do you honestly think that _any_ of the Templars here in Ostwick cared one bit about the _whys_ behind their orders?! They still killed every single mage that they could get their fucking hands on!”

He can’t see whoever this dickhead is, but from the sound of it he’s coming closer. There has to be others nearby, one mage can’t be this sure of themselves unless there’s a bloody horde of them nearby to back the fucker up. The solution is clear, to him at least. It’s a solution he hates, that he swore to himself would never be used again, but desperate times call for desperate measures and Garrett cannot do this on his own as he is right now, sluggish and disoriented from being slammed around and getting too close for comfort with magefire.

Only good thing about any of this is that he won’t even have to use a staff.

“Never thought I’d have to do it again,” he mumbles, rubs his fingers against his temple and feels blood stick to his fingers.

“Garrett?”

He ignores Imra’s question, mentally prepares himself—or at least tries to, with this shit it never, _ever_ gets any easier.

“Imra…” Garrett gets her attention with a shaky hand on her shoulder and she immediately gave it. “Carver?”

He doesn’t want his brother to see this, to see the very thing he swore to protect Thedas from.

This is how he protected Kirkwall, how the streets were eerily clean in the middle of the night, where before they had been riddled with filth from the gutters of the Undercity.

“He got out along with the all patients who were able to move. The only ones left here are those who are too precarious to move out of here.”

“Good,” is all Garrett says before he grabs for his arm, the one covered in numerous runic tattoos from his younger years in Kirkwall, and ignores the short intake of breath from Imra.

This is how he will protect this city, damn the consequences. When they force his hands, they must be prepared to face their self-made foe head on.

“No, Garrett, please,” Imra begs of him. “ _Please_ , don’t _do this_ —listen to me, it is not worth this, _Garrett, please jus—!_ ”

The blood staining his finger touches the rune and he feels it burn. He feels life energy, mana, everything around him. He feels the hands of the woman he cares about, he feels the sweat of exhaustion and battle cling to his face.

He feels _the world_.

Garrett Hawke, Champion of Kirkwall, rises from the ashes and with blood on his hands he rises to the challenge.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _They shall be named Maleficar, accursed ones ___


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tags have been updated seeing as everyone's favorite blood mage just got back in business

Back in Kirkwall things had been… different.

When Anders found out about the blood magic, about the runes that he had carved into his skin with ink and needles, about the illegal tomes he had kept instead of destroying, about the demons who had whispered into his ear in the night whilst walking the Fade, everything changed.

Before it had been easy to keep a secret, even to Imra who had been living with him for quite a while, and on the road with Carver, his brother had never even suspected that he was travelling with a blood mage, a Maleficar.

After the revelation Anders had watched him like a… well, like a _hawk_.

It made everything much simpler… much more _difficult_ at the same time.

A barrier rises over himself and Imra, he wills it to knit together tightly enough for the flickering torches inside to reflect off its surface. Nothing will harm her, nothing will harm him.

He cannot afford to get distracted now. After. Afterwards he will sit down with Imra and explain everything, explain why this is something he has to do and how it is going to save them in the end.

He’s never used blood magic for evil, he’s always kept it in check—Anders made sure of that, made sure to tell him of Cousin Amell who had to kill her very best friend because of blood magic, who had to make so many difficult choices because of fucking blood magic.

Not him. Never him.

 _Never_.

The blood magic has given him a boost, a severely necessary one as well, but this will all be over soon. The confidence that his magic gives him rushes through his veins, makes him lightheaded with the rush of power.

Imra is behind him, safe.

Good.

He doesn’t want her to be hurt by this.

He builds the magical power that swells inside of him, forces it to bend to his will, to take the shape of force and defense.

Their adversaries probably don’t expect him to be a mage, and if they do, they are quite good at hiding it.

The blood magic was the boost he needed to fuel the anger and battle lust inside of him—force magic is how he expresses it.

A Fist of the Maker breaks the leader’s flimsy excuse of a barrier and sends him and his followers hurtling back, away from the two of them and from the wounded who are still inside the building. He follows with ice and lightning, never fire, and sends barrage after barrage of attacks to keep the Circle mages busy. Moving subtly with every attack, he’s herding them towards the doors leading outside to the plaza, where they will be easier to handle.

Most of the remaining guards and soldiers must have heard the commotion in here by now, there will be no hiding what or who he is when this is all over.

They try to flank him, try to throw their worst at him, but Garrett’s no fumbling Circle Mage and their attacks barely puts a dent in his barrier. Behind him Imra is still cowering, no doubt scared beyond belief to be so close to magic, the very force she has been raised to fear all her life.

Not that it stopped her from starting to love him all those years ago.

“Imra, get going!” he roars over the flashes of fire that splutter out against his barrier. “I’ll be right behind you, but get to the injured and help them out!”

He doesn’t look back to see if she does as he asks, he simply believes that she will do it.

The Circle mages are attempting to block their way as he moves with Imra towards the lazaret and he hurls a Pull of the Abyss at them with a precision he scarcely uses. They fumble together in a heap, yelling and screaming curses as the suction keeps them tethered to the ground, unable to use their own mana as they remain too preoccupied to cast anything useful, and this is when Garrett blindly grabs for Imra’s hand, finds it after taking a few stumbling steps backwards, and bursts into a wild sprint towards the infirmary.

The barrier remains in place around the two of them, moving with them through the hall.

She refuses to look at him as she’s fumbling with one of the patients, a groaning man whose lower half is swaddled in salve-drenched bandages. Five or six other patients are still here, but that is all. They find some of the assistants remaining here as well, huddled with the patients and staring at him with wide, frightened eyes.

“He will not harm any of you,” Imra’s voice cracks through the tension like a whip. “Now, come help me with those too injured to move on their own—quickly now!”

He turns away, lets the assistants and Imra do their job without him to screw it up by doing something wrong on accident, and instead ducks around the curtains cutting off the infirmary from the rest of the hall to keep a close eye on their adversaries.

They are still struggling with his Pull, he is only through sheer force of will still keeping it going strong. Their leader, the asshole who spoke so callously before, is staring straight at him with murder in his eyes.

Garrett returns the favor and gives the prick a smile with far too many teeth to be calming.

The noises of the healers working themselves to the bone can be heard behind him. He ignores most of it, only listens with half an ear whilst keeping the hostile mages not far away in check.

“You’re one of our own!” the leader howls out, still struggling to get free of the Pull. “Why are you defending these swine?!”

He doesn’t answer, instead lets even more mana fuel the utter chaos in front of him, lets lightning dance along the edges and striking those who get a little too close to escape.

“ _Traitor_!” the mage screams like a man possessed, spittle flying from his mouth as he claws at the wood. “You fucking _traitor_!”

“Everyone’s out!” he hears Imra call behind him and Garrett turns his back.

When everyone is out fire engulfs the building, blows out the remaining, non-broken windows and he ignores the screams inside as he walks away.


	9. Chapter 9

“I need to find Evelyn and you need to find Carver. Neither are here, the soldiers said the last they saw of both of them were when they delved back into the city.”

At least she’s speaking to him for the time being.

“Carver’s back out there?”

“With my sister,” Imra nods. “The mages won’t even know what hit them.”

“She’ll kill them. All of them.”

“They just gave my sister the perfect reason to put them all down like rabid dogs, Garrett,” Imra sighs and wrings her hands. She is getting more distraught by the minute. “I never wanted this to happen… I never thought that—”

“You cannot fall apart now, Imra,” Garrett interrupts her before she gets going a little too well. “I need you to concentrate right now.”

She takes a shuddering breath but nods and finally, _fucking finally_ , looks straight at him.

“I don’t want to take you with me out there if I can avoid it, but neither am I comfortable with leaving you here,” he begins and motions for the chaos out there by the gates. “But if you come with me out into the city you have to promise to do exactly as I say. If I tell you to run, you run. If I tell you to hide, you hide. You have to _promise_.”

He’s holding onto her hands by the end of it, clutching at them as if this is the last time that they will ever have a moment of peace for themselves.

“What you did back there…” she trails off at the end, looking uncertain and so scared of everything that it’s hard to not just take her into his arms and hide her away from the rest of the world.

“We can talk about this later, when we’re out of danger, alright? Right now, we cannot fall apart.”

She nods, takes his words as gospel, and how can she not? She is not used to this, but Garrett is. It has only been _months_ since the explosion in Kirkwall, since everything fell apart, and the first few weeks after that she was bedridden while he had to try and clean up the sorry leftovers that remained of law and order in the city state.

“The civilians—”

“We’ll get them to the harbor. The ships down there looked intact when Carver and I arrived,” he cuts her off while steering her back towards the soldiers trying to get a grip of the situation. “Help them. I’ll be right here.”

She looks reluctant and he can’t really blame her, not with everything that is going on right now.

“And you swear that you will still—”

“I will still be here. I _promise_.”

She nods and leaves, heads straight for the soldiers.

Garrett takes in a breath he didn’t even realize that he needed. The peace is rather short-lived, though.

Before he knows it there are soldiers all around him, soldiers he’s gotten to know over the last few days before everything went to shit, and from the looks of it, they’re none too happy about the entire situation. He cannot really blame them for that. There’s a lot of people that he cannot truly blame for feeling how they do.

The captain he was assigned to when they first arrived steps forward, grim expression plastered onto his face and a giant battle axe in hand already.

Oh joy.

“So, what is it going to be?” Garrett raises an eyebrow at the power play.

“You a mage, boy?”

“Born and raised.”

“Circle?”

“Never went.”

“You an apostate then. A criminal.”

“I’m the fucking Champion of Kirkwall,” Garrett replies blithely and takes his time glaring at everyone around him. “Just your luck that I decided to try out a new city, huh?”

“You crazy?” one of the soldiers’ spits at him, sword half-way out of its scabbard. “If you hadn’t come—”

“If I hadn’t come, the mages would still have attacked and they would have continued to rampage through the district after killing every single one of you, if you stood in their way,” Garrett cuts the soldier off. He’s so fucking tired of this shit, it’s unbelievable. “All I did was stall the inevitable.”

“And what will you do now?”

“Find my brother and the Lady Commander. Then get out of here like my arse was on fire.”

“You won’t come back here afterwards?”

“What’s there to come back to?”

“Fair point. Jus’—have to be certain, y’know.”

“I understand.”

Imra pushes past the soldiers then, doesn’t spare any of them a single look as she reaches out and grasps Garrett’s hand in hers.

“We’re done here. The soldiers know what to do with the remaining civilians and where to get them.”

“My lady, you’re not thinking of going with him, are you?”

Her attention turns to the captain, the one who just spoke, and from the look in her eyes, Garrett’s already hoping that the poor bastard just starts praying right now.

“Is there a problem?”

“H-he’s a _mage_!”

“He is also the only reason that we got those last patients out. He is the reason that you’re still alive to complain. I do realize that he is a mage, the flashes of lightning and ice from before ought to have cured you of any illusions as well, I hope, but as of right now he is the best chance for me to find my sister, _your_ commanding officer, if I might add.”

“Well, y-tes, but—”

“But nothing!” Imra cuts him off without a second thought. "I have had quite enough of people believing me unable to understand the consequences of my actions, and your insinuations, captain, are _not_ needed right now."

Garrett couldn’t be more proud.

“Either help the soldiers that I have already instructed on evacuating the remaining civilians in here, or join the fight against the mages that got in. Either way, I will be following Serah Hawke through the city and hopefully find the Commander Trevelyan.”

The captain falls silent then, looks from Imra to Garrett, and then he sighs like he’s just aged fifty years.

“You keep her Ladyship safe, you hear me, boy?”

“I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

“Good. Then go do your Champion-thing, and afterwards you better get the fuck out of my city.”

“Aye-aye, _sir_.”

With a mock salute Garrett’s out through the front gate to the district, girl in tow and a growing grin on his face.

He’s back in business and it feels _great_ to be alive.


	10. Chapter 10

Out there, in the middle of the city, it’s quiet. Almost _too_ quiet.

A cough makes its way out through his throat, forcing Carver to stop for a moment and lean against a wrecked wall as dizziness sweeps over him.

Evelyn looks back at the younger Templar, her lips pressed thin and a worried frown lingering on her brow. He’s not well. Hasn’t been since he wandered after her like a lost little lamb, determined to prove himself to his superior.

At least that’s why she _thinks_ he went after her.

“Carver, you are not well.”

“And the sky’s blue, Captain,” Carver spits back at her, wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. Her eyes linger on the speckles of blood that are left behind, shiny and wet. “The world won’t wait for me to get better. This is our chance to help the city and the remaining civilians. I will not squander it.”

“Putting your health at risk is foolish. I have enough foolish men under my command already.”

“And yet, you allowed me to follow you, didn’t you?”

His grin is cocky, just the right amount of annoying and self-sure.

“Indeed.”

Evelyn’s curt reply does nothing for his grin, but he does stop his leaning against the wall and pushes off, ready once more to clear out the harbor-district, to pave the way to salvation for as many as possible.

Their approach is as silent as can be when dressed in full plate armor, and for the most part they are largely unnoticed by the rampaging bands of mages that wander around the streets with staves bared and feral grins on their faces.

But their luck runs out. Because _of course_ it does.

“Where should we go?”

“The harbor master’s office will the easiest place to fortify and defend, should anything go wrong,” Evelyn answers.

They can see the building in question right in front of them, just short of maybe fifty feet away from where they are hidden by the shadows.

“Building’s made of stone, won’t be able to set it all aflame with us in it.”

“Exactly.”

“So, what do we do from there?”

“Wait for your brother to find us. Then we’ll clear as much of the district as we can before the civilians come down here to be evacuated.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

They are too caught up in the moment, too sure of themselves, of their powers, of the lyrium coursing through their veins, and they never even see it coming.

A screech sounds behind them, human and raw, and that is the only warning they receive before a hail of ice and fire is flung directly at them.

“ _Templars_!” a mage screams as she runs away from the group that has just attacked them, no doubt planning on alerting every single mage in the vicinity of their location.

Something big slams into Evelyn, knocks her clean off her feet and onto the ground before either of them can even reach for their swords.

An icicle, twice as long as his forearm, but narrow and slight like a spear, is sticking out of her shoulder and blood oozes slowly from around the wound. Her face twists in a silent scream as she struggles to keep her noises at the bare minimum. The cold from the missile is spreading from where it has penetrated through her plate armor, driven through her shoulder and is probably sticking out on the opposite side.

It hurts.

Maker’s fucking _balls_ , it _hurts_!

With a snarl she gets onto her knees, wraps a shivering hand around the icicle and _yanks_.

Blood pours out immediately, accompanied by dissolving chunks of magical ice that seethes and hisses as it is met with the much warmer air around it.

Carver reacts solely on muscle memory.

A Smite is thrown by both Evelyn and him at the group of rabid mages just behind them, successfully breaking through the barrage of magical missiles targeting them, causing both fire and ice to disappear and only leave behind an ethereal, blinking mist.

It is all that Evelyn needs.

Without a word she gets onto her feet and rushes down the narrow street, sword bared and ready to kill. The mages fumble as they all collectively panic, desperate to throw up shields, or maybe even try to deflect the incoming sword with only their staves.

She is barely even thinking about her wound, the adrenaline dulling everything.

It is an exercise in futility for she cuts them down with no regrets, leaving ropes of red staining the ground, the walls, even the bodies that fall before her.

Evelyn is efficient, calm and collected as if she is merely doing a routine patrol, and all Carver can do is stare as he keeps the Smite reinforced and strong against the mages that are still alive.

Their screams echoes against his eardrums, pleading and scared where before their voices cried out for revenge like rabid dogs.

Circle mages.

No, these are not anything like the quiet, often well-mannered mages he knows from back when he was but a young initiate in Kirkwall’s Circle. These are apostates, rebels hungry for power and not afraid to do whatever it takes if it means that they will be free, away from Chantry influence for the rest of their lives. To these people he cannot show weakness, he can only show ruthlessness.

They’re not like Bethany, like Garrett.

They’re _not_.

He can feel the urge to vomit sneaking up on him with every wet, sucking sound Evelyn’s sword makes as it exits one mage and enters another, systematically dispatching every single one of their now-defenseless attackers.

Not now. Later. Much, _much_ later when no one is watching.

But, not now.

“Carver, it’s done.”

Evelyn’s voice rings clear, the only sign that she has utilized her talents being a slightly labored breath and the faintest hint of sweat making her forehead shiny.

“R-right.”

“We need to move, there is no telling what will happen if we linger here for long.”

“Of course.”

He waits as she passes him and immediately follows behind her as they head for the harbor master’s office, refuses to look down at the bloodied cobblestones beneath his boots and the butchered mages behind him.

They’re not human.

They’re nothing but abominations in the making, probably already dabbling into blood magic.

They’re not human.

They’re not like his siblings.

 _They’re not_.


	11. Chapter 11

“Do you have enough potions packed?”

Garrett raises an eyebrow as he watches Imra pat him down, quietly fussing as they’re taking a brief rest from traversing across the ruins of Ostwick.

“You know I do,” he opens up the backpack he’s been carrying ever since they set out from the headquarters several hours ago, shows her the bundle of vials filled with red, orange and blue liquids. “You packed them down yourself, Imra.”

Above them, the sun is setting, painting the sky a myriad of oranges and reds speckled with purple and lilac. A deceivingly lovely sunset for a day filled with tragedy and horrors.

He looks down at her, really, _really_ looks. She’s tired, fraying along the edges, and it is beginning to show with dark smudges beneath her eyes, her hair no longer kept in its customary bun but instead a messy braid she made whilst they were hurrying through the darkening streets as fast as possible.

“I—I’m sorry, Garrett,” she sighs and places a hand on his arm, squeezing gently. “All of… _this_ , it’s stressing.”

“Tell me about it,” he agrees but smiles. “Don’t apologize, Imra. It’s fine—I get it.”

She doesn’t look convinced. Shit, he’s never been good with stuff like this, feelings and the like. It was always Mother or Bethy or, even later, Imra.

“Do you think that… they’re alright?”

“Who, Evelyn and Carver?” he waits to see how she reacts and continues after her tentative nod. “They’re both Templars, Imra. They’ve got lyrium and much better fighting skills than most of the mages here in the city would ever _dream_ of possessing. They’ll be fine.”

“I’m just…”

“Worried?”

“Yes. Something like this has never, and I mean _never_ , happened in Ostwick before. The Circle has always been so… placid. Content, I think is the word I’m looking for.”

“I’d agree with you if it weren’t for the fact that just this morning, we were attacked by who knows how many of these so-called ‘placid and content’ mages you’re speaking of.”

“Yes, well, nobody’s perfect.”

Her comment is so unexpected, so utterly _not_ Imra that he’s taken aback for moment or two. Garrett blinks, looks at her in bewilderment, before he leans back his head and laughs.

Immediately two dainty little hands are covering his mouth in an attempt to hold back his laughter as Imra shushes him rather viciously.

“Garrett, _be quiet_!” she hisses at him, her foot making a hard connection with his shin, and his laughter cuts off to a breathy wince instead. “We have to be careful! You can’t just run around laughing like a man possessed!”

“Then don’t be so unexpected!” he chuckles, cheeks beginning to hurt from how hard he laughed just before. “You threw me for a loop there.”

“People change, Garrett.”

His chuckle dies off, face turns somber. “Yeah, they do.”

The atmosphere changes, turns somber and quiet. Her words bring with them a pang of guilt in Garrett’s chest, makes it constrict and squeeze as if someone has taken a hand through his fist and gotten a tight grip on his heart.

“After… after this is over, what then, Garrett?”

“After Ostwick?”

“Yes.”

That surprises him.

“Well… Carver and I had planned to go to Ferelden, you know this,” he says and waits for her confirming nod before continuing. “Nothing’s changed from there. I can’t stay in the Free Marches.”

“And what about…”

“About…?”

“What about me?”

“You…” his voice trails off in the end as he takes in her question, actually pays attention to what she is saying to him here. “You could come with me.”

“Come with you?!”

It’s not the answer she has been expecting from him, probably.

“Yeah, why not?”

“But I—this is my _home_ , Garrett.”

“Your home that you didn’t even want to go to in the first place, if I recall,” he says, looking around in the alleyway they’re resting in. “Imra. Leaving you here was a mistake, I’ve already told you this. I am not leaving you here, unless you really _truly_ wants me to.”

“But what about _your_ home here in the Marches, Garrett? What about Kirkwall?”

“I don’t think the Chantry would appreciate me moving back into Kirkwall, at least not when the new Grand Cleric is throwing special division Templars left, right and center to hunt down apostates, while I’m also trying to keep myself out of the Mage Rebellion as much as possible.”

“So… what? You’re not going to join the rebels? _At all_?”

“I’m—" Garrett sighs and runs a hand through his hair, making it stick everywhere. “I get where they’re coming from. I will be the first to admit that if I had to endure all the shit we’ve heard coming out of the Circle, I’d have gone crazy too and probably ended up summoning a demon or some shit like that. But I wasn’t. My father taught me, taught my sister, to be better than what the common people expected of us. Back in the day he lived there, in the Circle. He saw what it did to people of every age, no matter if they were taken there as children or youngsters, or even adults. And he didn’t want either Bethy or I to _ever_ experience that.”

She looks at him with those large, warm eyes. He can't tell the emotion behind them, only that whatever it is, it's making her blink rather rapidly, as if trying to hold back tears.

If he's just made her cry again he'll have to ask Carver to beat him over the head. _Again_. 

“Rare is the day where you are as serious as you are right now. Isabela’d have a field day with this," she croaks out and discreetly wipes at the corner of her eye, removing any hint that she was ever close to shedding tears.

“Oh, would she ever,” Garrett chuckles and looks down at the paved cobblestones beneath his boots. “Would she ever…”

“Bethany, your sister…” Imra trails off, unsure for a moment if she should continue, but then straightens her back. “Would she have liked it? The Circle, I mean.”

Her new question makes him hesitate for just a moment. He wants to say yes. But that... that would have been a lie. Bethany would never have needed to hide if she had been in the Circle, and that had always been what had torn most at his darling little sister. Running. Hiding. Never staying in one place for overly long. She would have loved the Circle and the security it would have brought into her life, even if she would have had to live with ruddy Templars breathing down her neck and a crazed Knight-Commander to lord the brand of Tranquility over her head at the smallest of offenses.

“I’d like to say no, to say that she’d hate it with the passion of a thousand suns," he starts. "But honestly? Bethany would have fit right in with the Circle mages, with their quiet studying and ability to focus like nothing else on something. Their comminity. Their... their _safety_. You saw Anders at work back in Darktown. You know what Circle Magi are like when they _truly_ set their mind to something.”

“I also saw what it caused in the end when he snapped.”

Guilt, old, familiar friend that it is, pops up yet again.

“Something I can never truly apologize enough for.”

“What happened was not your fault, Garrett.”

“Kirkwall is my city! If their own Champion can’t defend it from the inside, then who can?”

“No one could have predicted what Anders would have done. You beating yourself up over something that happened _months_ ago won’t do anything towards helping, either. You have to focus, Garrett, on the present—not the past.”

Garrett looks at her. Really, truly _looks at her_ , and the woman he sees standing there in front of him is so different, so very different than then young woman he met all those years ago in Lowtown. She's changed, just as he has, since he left her here. There are still traces of the Imra he left behind, a softness in her eyes and the way she smiles when she thinks he's not looking directly at her. The way she let her hands linger against him whenever he'd pulled her into the shadows when rampaging mages neared them through their trek of the ruined city.

“Since when did you get so wise, Imra?”

If she’s surprised by how soft his voice suddenly sounds, Imra truly hides it well. “I got older, Garrett—grew up. I also got a few gray hairs from seeing my first shop razed to the ground, my home getting razed by a horde of rampaging Qunari and taking care of this one guy I know.”

A splutter erupts from Garrett.

“A ‘horde of rampaging Qunari’?”

“What else would you have called it?”

“I—I don’t know! You mind if I steal that one, though? It was a _great_ oneliner.”

“Feel free.”

“Now, you mentioned a guy?”

“Yes,” she’s smiling now, bright and wonderful and oh, how he’s _missed this_. “He’s a mage, you see, but he always gets into trouble, or at least he used to, back when I still lived in Kirkwall.”

“This guy sounds like a right proper pain in the rear.”

“Oh, you’ve no idea. But I love him anyway.”

This time there’s silence. Imra’s still smiling at him and it’s almost enough for him to create an illusion that this is just a bad dream and when he wakes up, he’ll be back in Kirkwall, Imra curled up beside him in the bed and the dog barking like mad downstairs. It’s a nice dream, a very nice fantasy, even. But that’s all it really is.

A fantasy.

Because he’s not in Kirkwall, he’s in Ostwick. Just the latest city to fall in his general vicinity ever since he was granted citizenship in the Free Marches.

“We—there’s still plenty of ground to cover, we can’t be far behind your sister and Carver,” he scratches the back of his neck, fully aware of just how tame the excuse sounds, but Imra seems to buy it anyway when she steps away from him, hand retracting and leaving his skin oddly cool and shivering where her skin touched him before.

If he still intends for delusions to have a go at him it also seems as if there’s a flicker of something _quite close_ to… disappointment in Imra’s eyes when he pulls away, but surely that’s just a trick of the light.

She said that she’d give him time.

She promised. And Imra’s always kept her promises to him.

“C’mon,” his hand curls around the handle of his staff as he quickly pats himself down to check if everything’s where it’s supposed to be—and it is, “We need to get going.”


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> note: dead children/young teenagers described in this chapter - ye be warned

They reach the harbor and utter _carnage_ meets them.

Fallen mages litter the streets, their blood and other body fluids soaking everything in a dark, disgusting crimson color and a rank smell of decay already setting in where torn flesh is exposed to the elements.

Soot-bursts litter the pavement as well, sizzling fog creeps along the ground where magically enchanted icicles are left broken or abandoned from whatever fight has been fought down here.

“Send up the signal,” Garrett says, voice dead, betraying no emotion as he surveys the area. “Let them know that the road is clear.”

“But what about—”

“There aren’t any others nearby, I’m sure of that,” he interrupts her without a thought. “It seems that your sister and my brother have cleared the way for good, at least so far.”

“I… yes,” Imra nods and bends to his wishes as she digs into the backpack she’d commandeered from some poor supplier before she set out with him.

A flare is presented to him before long and Garrett takes it. He refuses to look at her, refuses to look at her eyes and see the disappointment, the concern, the potential fear, because this… this doesn’t look like a battle.

It looks like an execution.

Bile rises in the back of his throat.

“Maker’s breath,” Imra forces out behind him as he prepares the little red rod of hardened powder.

When he hurls it into the air and sends a quick blast of magefire after it, the sky is filled with red dust that travels upwards in a plume. If the remaining civilians can see it, the rebel mages will be able to see it too. Or, at least those still left alive by the carnage behind and all around him. The stench of lyrium makes his skin crawl, not the scent of the potions used by mages, but the kind of lyrium prepared and taken by Templars when they need an extra boost of their might against all kinds of magic. Maker’s balls, if he stumbles into Carver while he’s still affected by it, there’s the chance that just being in close proximity to him will nullify his magic.

And Garrett can’t take that chance, not while Imra’s here with him. Not when she’s his responsibility and her sister is more than likely to take his head, should anything happen to her.

“Did my… did my sister do this?”

Garrett looks over his shoulder and blanches. Imra’s face is faintly green and her knuckles are white from the tight fists she is making, almost as if she’s trying to hold herself back from doing something she will regret. He can feel the sharp burn of bile in the back of his throat and swallows, winces when it only makes the sensation spread out through his entire body and a shudder involuntarily makes him shiver.

He gets it. He really does.

The memory of how he’d bent over immediately the first time he’d killed someone and emptied his stomach in a gutter somewhere in Kirkwall is still sharp, still makes goosebumps rush up and down his skin. It won’t ever leave him, the scent and memory of utter _carnage_ , but Imra is still innocent, still has yet to take another person’s life.

If he has his way, that won’t ever happen.

“It’s a war, Imra. People get hurt.”

“This wasn’t a battle,” she shakes her head at him in refusal. “This was a _slaughter_.”

“The mages wouldn’t have given them a choice, you know that, right?”

“I just—”

“I know,” he cuts her off. “I know, Imra.”

She lets out a miserable sound when he steps over the mauled corpse of a young boy, blank eyes staring up at the darkening sky above them.

There are so many others like him. Young men and women, some even younger than that, scattered all over the plaza.

Garrett doesn’t look back. He only reaches out to grab her hand and hauls her with him as they cross the open space between the two of them and the harbor.

“What would be the easiest place to defend?”

Imra blinks and looks surprised that he’s even thought of asking her. Her eyes stray down towards the massacred corpses before answering. “I—I don’t know. Maybe one of the buildings that the officials down here were using.”

“You have an office that handles the affairs of every ship that wants to enter or leave Ostwick?”

“You mean like a harbor master?”

“Exactly.”

“Y-yes, the office should be straight across from here.”

“You know where it is?”

“I’ve had to come down here several times before all of this dissolved into chaos, when I still needed herbs for medicinal purposes. It is not far.” she nods and Garrett squeezes the hand still trapped in his.

“Good, then show the way. Chances are we’ll find your sister and my wayward, baby brother holed up in there.”

* * *

As a matter of fact, they _do_.

It goes about as well as could be expected.

“Evelyn!”

The swords bared and pointed at him and Imra are immediately dropped when she darts out from behind him and heads straight for her scowling sister.

“Imra, what in Andraste’s name are you—"

“You’re hurt!”

Imra is at Evelyn’s side in seconds, potion bottle in hand and her best scowl firmly in place as she wrangles her sister off to the side so she can see to the wound in Evelyn’s shoulder.

Garrett and Carver are left where they are, utterly forgotten by the two Trevelyans currently bickering at each other in one of the office’s corners. He snorts and looks away as a wide grin spreads on his face, waving a hand at the inquisitive look his brother gives him.

“Fine,” the surly prick grumbles, “Keep your bloody secrets, brother.”

“No, no, it’s just—I just,” Garrett’s grin only continues to widen. “We have just been thrown aside, as if we’re nothing but wall decorations.”

“You want to be useful, conjure up a proper painkiller,” Imra snaps from where she’s carefully dabbing on a sickly green substance on Evelyn’s now-bare and very much wounded shoulder.

Garrett winces at the raw, open wound in it, even if it _is_ slowly knitting itself together by the healing potion Imra’s no doubt made her swallow.

“Sorry, but magic doesn’t work that way, sweetheart,” he calls before catching Carver’s eye. His brother nods towards the doorway that he and Imra just entered through and Garrett inclines his head.

They need to talk. Sooner, rather than later.

“Then what good is it?”

“Don’t know. I’m going to catch up with Carver for a bit, don’t bring down the house.”

“Oh, funny,” she laughs and it’s only _just_ on the right side of sarcastic.

Garrett throws her a salute before he drags Carver out of the room.

His brother is patting him down the _second_ they’re in the wrecked hallway. For a moment there’s utter _surprise_ dancing across Garrett’s face, because this just isn’t how Carver would normally react, but then he _remembers_.

He remembers all the corpses outside, mauled by a sword and soaked in the aura left behind by a Templar using their abilities.

“You’re safe,” Carver croaks out and that’s all the warning that Garrett gets before he finds his arms full of the younger Hawke. “Thank the Maker, you’re safe.”

“‘Course I’m safe, silly,” Garrett smiles and slings an arm around his brother’s shoulders. “I’m _me_.”

It’s the wrong thing to say.

Carver rips himself out of his brother’s arms, shoves him away and steps back to glare at him with furious, teary eyes.

“You just don’t fucking _get it_ , do you?”

Garrett blinks.

“Carver?”

“No—no, of course you wouldn’t get it. You’re _you_ , how could I forget?”

“Carver, if you could just—”

“Do you have any idea what’s happening around you or are you really so self-absorbed that you can’t even see the fucking chaos right in front of you?!”

Carver’s hand come up to fist in his clothes, finding purchase in the pliable leather and Garrett finds himself pressed against the stone wall.

It’s quiet in the room on the other side. He can’t hear either Imra or Evelyn’s voices.

“I did _things_ to get us here, Garrett,” Carver chokes out and looks down at the ground below him as his lip begins to tremble. “They were just scared, all they wanted was to get _out_ of this fucking city but she gave the order and I obeyed it despite knowing just how fucking wrong it was.”

“Carver…”

He’s beginning to understand now, what happened outside of the building.

“They were just _children_.”

“Tell me you didn’t—”

“No, Maker, no, I didn’t kill them. I couldn’t. Just stood there like a fucking statue until the Captain came over and threw me aside. She didn’t even hesitate.”

Garrett sees red, actual fucking _red_ as he pushes against Carver’s grip, as the fury wells up inside of him and gnaws and screeches and _demands_ that he march right back inside that fucking room on the other side of this fucking wall and paint it with Evelyn—fucking—Trevelyan’s insides.

“Garrett, don’t—”

“You can’t just spew shit like that out of the fucking blue and expect me _not to care_!” he snarls. “What are you trying to pull with shit like that?!”

“Garrett,” Carver snaps, shakes his leathers to gain his attention. “You can’t kill her. You _can’t_.”

“To the bloody _Void_ with what I can or can’t!”

“It’s over and done with, there was nothing either of us could do.”

“You could have stood up to her, told her _no_!”

“And let her throw me in chains as soon as possible? Leave me to the crazed mages still remaining? No, nothing would have changed if that had happened!”

“So letting her kill _children_ was the way to go instead?! Don’t _bullshit_ me, Carver!”

“Will you just _stop it_?!” Carver finally roars, his voice echoing and Garrett finally stops his struggling against his brother, breath heaving as he focuses on the younger man in front of him.

Carver’s eyes are brimming with tears and his nose is red. For a moment he just looks… well, _vulnerable_.

“It was going to happen one way or another,” he rasps out when he meets Garrett’s eyes again. “Either it would have been us or it would have been the special troupe of Templars making their way across the Free Marches right now. Her killing them here and now would have been kinder in the long run. She knew to do it quickly.”

“You can’t say that, _you just_ _can’t_ —”

“Garrett, _enough_!”

The burn of salt behind his eyes has Garrett blink furiously and this time it’s him who has to look down at the ground instead of at his brother.

“I just—”

“Garrett, I said _enough_.”

Garrett slumps against the wall, a clenched hand slamming into it as fury and anger and desperation and _despair_ of all the fucking things in the world well up inside him. He wants to hit something, wants to hit Evelyn again and again until she tells him _why_ , just fucking why she thought that it would be fine for her to slaughter _children_.

“I just… I don’t want to stay here anymore, Garrett,” Carver shudders as he leans his forehead against his brother’s shoulder, hands still buried in his leathers. “I just want to _go_.”

Garrett doesn’t say a single word but instead slips both arms around Carver and just _holds on_ with closed eyes and a grim expression etching itself into his face.

The bile rises once more, presses against the back of his throat, but Garrett won’t let it out. He can’t.

He’s got civilians to save and a ship to ready.

Evelyn will come after that.

There’ll be no escape for her.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's so much left unspoken,  
> Too soon for our conversation to end.  
> I thought we'd have so many more years,  
> And so much more time to spend.  
> \- Kelly Roper, "Conversation Interrupted"

It’s silent when they return.

He looks to Imra, sees the pained, shell-shocked expression on her face and mentally winces.

He and Carver weren’t exactly _quiet_ when they were yelling at each other out there in the hallway, and walls have a tendency to be quite thin whenever heavy subjects are pressing to get aired out.

“Imra?”

She looks over at him, tears brimming, and if he didn’t furious before he most certainly does now. He reaches out his hand, and she grasps it as the tears finally begin to fall. He’s on his knees immediately, drawing her into his arms and just holds her as silent sobs wreck through her body. Unwillingly Garrett’s eyes meet with Evelyn’s.

The contempt in there almost has him reeling.

“I assume there is an explanation for this preposterous behavior?”

Evelyn’s question has him _seething_ in _seconds_.

“I know what happened outside,” he spits out as he gets onto his feet once more, dragging Imra with him.

“I see.”

“What I want to know is _why_ you did it.”

“I believe that your brother already explained to you what the alternative was.”

“You slaughtered _children_.”

“I destroyed weapons that would have retaliated, had I given them leeway to.”

“Wea—how _dare_ you?!” Garrett roars as he maneuvers Imra out of the way before he stomps toward Evelyn, magic snapping in the air around him and fire enveloping his hands. “Those were real, _living_ people you just cut down!”

“They were a danger to themselves and those around them,” Evelyn argues back. “If I had not done this, they would have been executed by the Templars sent directly by the Grand Cleric, and do you think that they would have been kinder? Reprimanded them perhaps and then sent them on their way to the Tower in chains?”

“It doesn’t matter who killed them!” Garrett seethes, even as he tries to restrain the power inside of him that just wants to break free and _destroy_. “No matter the case, it doesn’t change the fact that you have the blood of children on your hands!”

“I was doing them a favor,” Evelyn insists as she gets on her feet, one hand massaging the part of her shoulder that had been wounded earlier. “What I did was a mercy compared to what they would face.”

“How can you be so sure? _How_ , damn it?!”

“Because I have seen the worst and the best of the Circle and of the Templars!” Evelyn finally screams back at him, her austere face finally cracking and showing some damn emotion. “Do you think that I took pleasure in it? Do you think that I smiled and laughed as I cut down one apprentice after the other? I am many things, Serrah Hawke, but I am not a sadistic monster! If I could have saved some, then I _would have_ , but even despite the fact that I am a Knight-Captain, it would have made little difference. They would have been killed or even turned Tranquil. Death is the kinder of the two, I assure you.”

“You disgust me,” Garrett spits at the ground in front of her. “You and the rest of your fucked up ideology.”

“You don’t even have the balls to admit that I am right,” Evelyn laughs, a bitter, broken sound. “To think that my sister sees something worth redeeming is beyond my imagination.”

“This isn’t about being right or not, it’s about fucking human decency!” Carver breaks in. “Never, in all my years as a Templar, have anyone ever done it themselves or asked me to put a child to the sword, no matter _what_ had happened in Kirkwall’s Circle. _Never_!”

“Then the rumors that have trickled out over the years must have been utter lies and deceit,” Evelyn remarks, and how she can look so haughty, so utterly sure of herself and at the same time disgusted is beyond Garrett.

“There are lines that you do not cross!”

Evelyn starts at the sound of Imra’s voice, as does both Garrett and Carver as they all turn to look at the youngest Trevelyan.

“I… I knew you saw them as different, Evelyn, that you didn’t believe any mage could ever escape the lure of power, but to think that you actually did this… that you killed _children_ ,” Imra shakes her head as the tears tumble down her cheeks. “ _You disgust me_.”

That is when the world falls to pieces around them.

A resonating _boom_ , much louder than the one that hit them back at the nobles’ quarters, shakes the entire building as dust and various larger pieces of debris rain down around them. Before any of them can even _react_ fire crashes against the windows, breaking some of the already-cracked plates and falling into the room.

There’s nothing to burn, though.

The entire room is made of stone, thank the Maker, but that still leaves the complication of a group of mages currently on the hunt for them. No doubt they picked up on the same traces of Templar-abilities lingering on the corpses outside, just as Garrett did not even an hour ago, and then drew their conclusions from there.

The screaming from before hasn’t exactly been quiet either, so it’s no surprise that they knew where to point their magic.

They all fall to the ground, Garrett letting out a pained sound when a piece of debris from the ceiling rips itself loose and connects with his stomach, but otherwise unharmed. For a brief moment there is nothing but absolute chaos in front of him, embers attempting and failing to kindle the stone beneath them and three sets of groans around him.

A deeper groan sounds above them and when Garrett squints up above him he lets out a foul oath.

He shoves at the person close to him, mentally reeling when he recognizes said person as _Evelyn_ , before rolling over where she was lying mere moments before.

The roof falls down where he lay seconds after.

It brings with it a whole new cloud of dust and debris that floods _everything_ , and a whole chant’s worth of jeers and howls from outside.

The fuckers are probably having the time of their life decimating important buildings for further use.

“Garrett, you alright?”

His brother’s voice cuts through the ringing in his ears, even as the whole room is spinning.

“C-Carver?”

“Oh for fuck’s—Garrett, the wall!”

He shakes his head to reorient himself but blanches immediately when he sees the utter _wreckage_ in front of him.

The roof that collapsed moments before have formed a wall between him and his brother. On his side only Evelyn is visible.

“Is Imra with you?” he yells back over the screeches of fire coming from outside the harbor master’s building. “Only got your Knight-Captain over here!”

“She’s here!” Carver calls over the deafening noises. “A little scratched up, but otherwise we’re both fine!”

Another burst of flames is sent hurtling through the air from outside, crashing into the building with a deafening roar, and Garrett is sent to his knees by the impact.

“Get out of there!” he screams.

“We can’t! The only exit is on your side!”

“Then dig a fucking hole through the debris, Carver! You’re not an imbecile!”

“Hawke, _get down_!”

He’s barely able to get his bearings before a heavy, _armored_ body slams into his, sending him straight to the ground as fire and debris rains down over them once more. A pained shriek deafens him momentarily as whoever’s above him apparent has their mouth right beside his ear, but the ringing noise is quickly fading, only to be replaced by a wet, sticky sensation.

With a rattling cough Evelyn rolls off him, only to gasp in what sounds like a mixture of shock and pain.

Garrett dares to open his achy, swollen eyes, groans and absentmindedly rubs at the spot on his stomach where the wet sensation has gathered. His hand rises up in front of his eyes, but what he sees has him freeze immediately.

Blood.

Dark red, sticky blood is coating his fingers, but when he fumbles against his stomach he feels no wound, only aches from being blown from one side to the other in the span of a few moments.

“C-champion…”

A shaky voice, Evelyn’s voice, catches his attention and Garrett immediately struggles to sit up.

From outside he can hear nothing, no doubt the mages are recharging after the firework show they just presented.

But the sight of Evelyn has his mouth dry up immediately, as the blood drains from his face.

The Knight-Captain is collapsed against the wall, her right side of her face an absolute horror of melted flesh and oozing blood, while one hand is almost absentmindedly pressed against her stomach where a large wooden splinter is sticking out of.

This time he can barely hold down the bile that’s threatened to surface for some time now. But only _just_.

“I-Imra, whe—where’s Imra?”

“Don’t you worry ‘bout a thing, she’s right on the other side of the wall. She’ll get through soon,” Garrett insists, forces cheer into his voice despite the situation.

He scrambles to his feet, collapses in front of Evelyn and immediately sets to rip and tear at the tunic he wears beneath his leathers. They’re not clean, or even _remotely_ passable as bandages, but it’s the best he has right now.

What else can he do?

With a wince and an oath foul enough for even a sailor to blush, Evelyn’s hands wrap around the thick splinter in her stomach and _tugs_ , resulting in her letting out a wail of pain as it comes loose, while also resulting in a fresh well of blood from her stomach.

In the distance, almost as if through fog, he can hear Imra’s shrill voice immediately after Evelyn’s wail.

 _Oh Maker, this isn’t happening_!

“Garrett, I don’t think that— _motherfucker_!” Carver’s voice sounds from the other side of the collapsed wall, muffled and angry like a someone’s kicked a box of hornets.

“Carver, you alright back there?”

“It’s nothing, just a support beam from the roof,” his brother answers back. “Garrett, I don’t think that we’ll get through soon, though.”

“That’s not an option, Carver.”

“Garrett, I’m telling you, there’s no chance that—"

“ _Now_ , Carver!” Garrett snaps as he scrambles to press a tightly wrapped up ball of cloth against the open stomach-wound. He winces at the cry of pain that sounds from the younger woman when the cloth touches her wound. The air reeks of burnt flesh and blood, making both Garrett’s nose and stomach revolt violently, but he refuses to let the bile surface now.

He can scream and throw up later, right now he has a fucking job to do.

Maker, why hadn’t he paid better attention to Anders when the bastard had tried to teach Merrill and him Spirit magic?

He doesn’t look up from Evelyn’s pained face, instead concentrating on keeping the pressure steady. To the Void with losing another person to the hatred between mages and templars.

Somewhere behind him, almost as if through thundering rain, he can hear the sound of debris being shoved away as fast as possible.

“C-champion, I—!”

“Don’t try to talk,” Garrett cuts her off almost immediately, eyes flashing as he fumbles briefly with a healing potion. He is about to pour it down Evelyn’s throat when the woman in question presses her lips together into a thin line and looks up at him with a pleading look in her eyes.

“Take my sister from this place, Champion,” Evelyn rasps, her eyes on half-mast as she is struggling to breathe. “Get her away from here and _keep her safe_!”

“I will,” Garrett says and takes the woman’s shivering hand in his. “I’ll keep her safe, just take the fucking potion!”

“ _Swear on it_!” Evelyn hisses at him, completely ignores Garrett’s tries of getting her aid, before a violent bout of coughing has a mixture of spittle and blood stain her lips and chin, a hazy film settling over her darkening eyes, “S-swear on your life tha—that… that you will—!”

Once more Evelyn turns her head away from the neck of the potion-bottle when he tries to pour its contents down her throat, and Garrett is well and truly beginning to feel the frustration well up inside him.

“I swear on my life,” Garrett speaks through gritted teeth and squeezes around the younger woman’s hand, “You have my word. Andraste’s tits, I’ll even write it down for you, just please drink already!”

“G-good…” Evelyn’s tense face slowly relaxes at Garrett’s words and she squeezes his hand back for what seems so much longer than the few seconds it truly is. That she has completely ignored his blaspheming is not a good sign.

The cloth that Garrett keeps pressed against her bleeding abdomen is getting soaked through from the growing amount of fluid it is absorbing. Evelyn is growing paler by the second, but Garrett won’t leave her here to die all alone—he’s a decent person, for fuck’s sake.

“Please,” he is pleading with her now, grows desperate with every moment, “please, just drink the fucking potion.”

“I am dying, Champion,” Evelyn shakes her head slowly, her eyes closed but expression still pained from even that simple motion. “You should not waste a precious resource on me when we both know that this is not a fight I will walk away from.”

“You can’t just quit like that!” he exclaims hotly, anger running rampant in his veins, making a dull roar echo in his ears, “You’re no good to Imra if you’re dead!”

Evelyn’s eyes crack open to glare up at him in anger, “Do not use my sister’s name to rile me, mage. You… you need not stay here to hold v-vigil over my body, Champion,” she continues with a wobbly sigh as she stares up at the ceiling with unseeing eyes. “I will not mind dying in silence.”

“Couldn’t you quit the morbid talking until we’re all out of here alive?” Garrett asks tersely, pressing harder on the cloth to increase the pressure at Evelyn’s abdomen. Her chances of survival are not great, he knows that, but he still has to believe that she can do it, that she _will_ survive.

Without the potion, her chances of surviving for much longer are plummeting by the second and at this point it is beginning to look more and more like Evelyn isn’t exactly counting on staying in the land of the living for much longer.

The woman in question doesn’t answer him. Instead she only takes in one rattling breath after the other.

He knows that she is dying, that there is nothing to be done except stay at Evelyn’s side until the end, and no amount of healing magic will be able to save her now. If she would just drink the potion she might have a bit longer, long enough for Imra to get here and say goodbye.

Deciding to take a chance, he lets go of her hand to instead grasp the potion bottle once more. The cork is lying on the floor, stained crimson from the thick fluid that sloshes around inside the glass-bottle. A few droplets escape from the rim of the bottle’s opening, the splashes indistinguishable against Evelyn’s already blood-soaked tunic.

The cloyingly sweet scent of elfroot permeates the small room, making Garrett’s gag reflex kick into action once more as it mixes with the pungent stench of blood. He keeps the bile down once more through sheer force of will, although it is a close thing this time.

“You… my sister?” Evelyn asks as she turns her head slightly, just enough for it to seem like she is looking at him, despite not being able to see anything, “Your brother…”

“They’re just on the other side of that wall, just _hang on_ ,” Garrett nods as he sits down beside Evelyn, never once letting go of her hand. “Please, you can’t do this—not now. For fuck’s sake, we just had an argument, you can’t quit like this!”

“So protective…” Evelyn hums somberly, “to think that I w-would live to see s-such manners from a b-bloody mage is—!”

She is cut off by another violent coughing fit.

“Hey, don’t waste all your energy just yet,” Garrett murmurs. “She’s almost there, I’m sure Carver is right around the corner with her in just a little while. You can hold on a little bit longer, a lot longer if you will just drink!”

“I-I…” Evelyn wheezes as tears slowly begins pooling below her eyes and running down her cheeks.

Taking her word as her finally accepting the damn thing, Garrett gently tips the bottle so the crimson liquid is drained slowly into Evelyn’s mouth. It takes a few tries for her to swallow the contents, droplets of the potion leaking out past her lips and mixing with her bloodied saliva, but down it goes.

As soon as all of it is down her throat Garrett throws the bottle to the ground behind him, and reaches out to grasp her hand once more.

Swallowing the potion does not make it easier for her to breathe, but some of the tension bleeds out of her body as the potion dulls the pain originating from her stomach, at least for the time being.

The solution is anything but permanent, both of them know that, but now she has a fighting chance—for the time being, at least.

Neither Garrett nor Evelyn say a single thing as the tears begins to silently run down her cheeks. He keeps the pressure on her wound at all times with one hand, not letting his grasp get lax at any time, while the other is firmly locked around Evelyn’s ungloved one. The only sound that echoes in the small, closed-off chamber is the raspy breaths that Evelyn struggles through as her strength wanes with each passing moment. Somewhere, further into the tower, they can hear the sounds of fighting—sometimes waning, sometimes growing closer, but nothing comes anywhere close to the door.

“She… spoke of you, quite often,” Evelyn suddenly speaks, her voice barely above a whisper, but it was there. “Told me the most curious tales of you and your scuffles with the Coterie in Kirkwall.”

“Yeah, met with those guys once or twice,” Garrett nods, “but that isn’t important right now. What’s important is you staying alive to see Imra, so stay awake for me, alright?”

“F-for Imra…”

“Yes, for Imra! You can’t go before saying goodbye to her.”

“As… as if I could.” Evelyn’s attempt at lightening the mood falls flat as blood dribbled down her chin once more. A thin sheen of sweat is beginning to cover her face and she lets out a wobbly groan of pain.

He sits there, by her side, for who knows how long.

He doesn’t count the minutes, all he counts is Evelyn breathing in and out, shaking her as gently as he can when she responds too slowly for his liking.

Finally, after what seems like half an Age, the sound of debris falling to the ground and two pairs of running feet reach Garrett’s ears, and he gently shakes Evelyn’s hand, prompting the weakened woman to crack open her unseeing eyes and whimper in protest.

“ _Evelyn_!”

Imra’s distraught voice makes his heart clench in his chest and Garrett moved aside to make room for the younger woman as she falls on her knees beside him. Carver appears seconds later, his face growing pale as he watches the scene before him. His eyes meet Garrett’s for a moment, nodding quietly when his older brother slowly shakes his head in defeat.

He understands what this means. Garrett can’t do anything but wish that he didn’t have to.

“Imra…?” Evelyn wheezes out, a mix of pain and serenity taking over her face, “I was waiting for you… with Hawke…”

“Carver told me,” Imra says, her voice wobbling as she takes Evelyn’s one free hand, “I came as quick as I could, I _promise_ yo—!”

“It is fine, sweetling,” her older sister sighs and attempts to squeeze the hand holding hers, but her fingers barely twitched, “I know you did your best. You always have… and you have to k-keep doing it for me.”

“D-don’t say that!” Imra is crying in earnest now, the tears rolling down her cheeks, “I have everything we need with me, I can fi— _I can fix this_!”

The sheer desperation in her voice makes Garrett want to start crying himself, he even feels the searing hot flash behind his eyes.

“Imra, it is too late,” he says, quietly so as to not startle her, “she won’t last much longer.”

“No!” Imra sobs as she twists around to reach for a pouch hanging from her belt, her sister’s blood staining her hands, “No, I will not let her die!”

“Imra, please don’t do this to yourself.”

She keeps shaking her head as Garrett continues speaking to her in a soft voice, refusing to listen to what he is even saying. She fumbles with the herbs and cries even harder when they slip out of her shaking fingers and falls onto the bloodied floorboards. Behind them Carver takes up position by the door and draws his greatsword, standing guard in case that they are interrupted.

“He… will keep you safe, Imra,” Evelyn utters, the tears rolling down her cheeks as well. “The Champion _promised_ me to keep you safe.”

“No, you and I are both getting out of here alive, just you wait!” Imra pleads with her sister, her lower lip beginning to wobble by the end of it. “Evelyn, _please_!”

Evelyn’s eyes, already so unfocused, close for brief moment, resulting in Imra letting out a sound not unlike that of a wounded animal, and Garrett feels his heart crack a little inside. The three of them can only watch on as the older Trevelyan lets out a wheezy sigh, eyes opening once more, before finally going still.

“Ev…” Imra shakes her sister’s shoulder gently, yet receives no response. Another shake, more insistent this time, results in the same lack of response and Imra wraps her small hand around her sister’s wrist with an almost hesitant hand.

No pulse.

“No…” she whispers and begins to shake her head, frozen in _horror_ — _denial_ — _despair_ , “No, no, no, no _no NO NO_!”

Garrett finally lets go of Evelyn’s now-limp hand, gently placing it on her stomach as he removes his other hand from where it has been putting pressure on the stomach wound.

His hand came away bloody and sticky. The wound still oozes sluggishly.

“I’m sorry, Imra,” he says quietly, reaching out to draw her into an embrace, even as Imra goes from stammering her denial to sobbing and wailing.

She hides in his embrace, her fingers finding purchase in his clothes, and lets out a shuddering sob. He closes his arms around her, resting his head on top of hers, and lets her hide from the world—at least for just a little while.

“Brother, we cannot stay here,” Carver speaks miserably from where he is standing guard by the door, his face as distraught as any of the others are. “If we linger much longer they will find us.”

“I’m not leaving her,” Imra sniffles, rubbing at her wet cheeks with the back of her hand and leaving behind streaks of red, irritated skin. She wipes her wet hands in her skirt.

“Imra, I promised that I would keep you safe no matter what,” Garrett rasps out, his voice gravelly from holding back his own emotions, as he moves back to look at her proper. “I _swore_ that to your sister, and I can’t keep that promise if you stay here.”

“ _I don’t care_!” Imra sobs as she tries to pull out of Garrett’s embrace, but he holds her firmly against his chest. “Let go of me, Garrett!”

“I can’t do that,” he responds miserably and gets onto his feet, dragging Imra with him and away from the cooling corpse of Evelyn.

“N- _no_! Leave me alone!” she wails again and begins to hit at the hand closed around her wrist. “ _Leave me be_!”

Garrett ignores her, although it pains him to do so, hauling her onto her feet and proceeding to move out of the room with Carver right behind them.

“E-Evelyn… _EVELYN_!”

* * *

He never wanted this.

He never wanted her to die, for it to end like this.

The woman screaming and crying in his arms grounds him, centers him in the goal that he has been given.

He stops, transfers Imra from his arms to Carver's. When his brother looks at him with beseeching eyes Garrett merely shakes his head, and grasps at the battered staff on his back.

"They will pay for this. Never again."

* * *

The streets of Ostwick run red.

He hunts.

He spares no one.

Their screams are cut short—their pleas go unheard.

They're not people, they're  _monsters_. Apostates gone mad, powerhungry wretches.

Blood soaks his tattered clothes, drenches his skin.

Garrett revels in it, deep, deep down.

And the slaughter continues.

 

 

 


	14. Chapter 14

When he returns it’s nighttime.

Above him the moon is rising, illuminating the now much-busier harbor districts as the remaining nobles and commoners all have trekked through Ostwick to gather on the remaining, seaworthy ships.

Garrett sticks to the shadows. The people shouldn’t see him like this, the scent of magic layered thick around him and blood soaking into every part of his clothes. Not to mention the smell that’s slowly starting to get to him.

He finds Carver and Imra not far from one of the ships heading for Amaranthine.

Carver, looking as stoic and intimidating as ever in his blood-speckled Templar-armor, has somehow managed to harangue some of the locals into a semblance of a workforce, and is busy trying to get them to ready as many ships as possible.

Imra, on the other hand, just sits on an overturned crate, pale-faced and teary-eyed as she watches the crowds moving around her without really seeing anything.

Rubbing a hand over his face, wincing in disgust when the hand is coated in a mixture of soot and blood, Garrett takes a moment to really let the entire situation sink in.

Ostwick is _gone_. The city has practically been leveled to the ground by rampaging mages and apostates, and the few buildings that remain barely look livable.

It’s like the Blight all over again.

“Is it over?”

He hasn’t even seen his brother move, but when he notices him, Garrett just can’t make himself meet Carver’s eyes.

He’s such a fucking hypocrite.

The very thing he had hounded Evelyn about just moments before her death, killing mages indiscriminately, Maker forgive him, because he’s just done the very same thing.

Out at sea a ship lies anchored not far from the coast, though a steady stream of small rowing boats speeds back and forth between the dockside and the ship, all of them no doubt filled to the brim with the evacuated citizens of Ostwick.

“It… it is.”

His eyes move back to Imra, lingers on her so-much-smaller body, her pale face, her shivering hands. She looks utterly miserable in this place, the city she grew up in, now a ruined mess of fire and smoke and charred destruction.

Rain begins to fall.

Carver lets out a curse as he shields his eyes to look upwards. Out of the corner of his eye, Garrett sees him haul out something from the pack he’s been carrying the whole day and wrap a large sheet of cloth around Imra’s shoulders. It dwarfs her, absolutely drowns her in a sea of dark, water-resistant leather, but it’ll keep her dry, and that’s the important thing.

“We need to get going.”

His voice is mechanical, emotionless. When Carver looks at him with worried eyes, he gives his brother a stretched, thin smile before motioning him to get Imra on her feet. She obeys without complaint, the same emotionless expression on her face.

The flock of refugees around them is massive and all of them panicked, but Garrett is still a man on a mission with Imra along for the ride, and with Carver’s help he paves a way through the masses straight to the waterfront.

“Take ship and get to Ferelden,” Carver shouts over the noise of hundreds of people trying to evacuate, “I will follow when I am able!”

Garrett stares at his brother in disbelief for a moment, shakes off the melancholy to actually process what Carver is even _saying_ right now, “What are you talking about, Carver? Have you gone mad?”

“I will stay here for now and help with salvaging what we can,” Carver gestures to the barely standing buildings around them before he looks over Garrett’s shoulder, down at Imra behind him, “The Order will need all the help they can get, and you… you have other things to take care of right now than me.”

“I… well, if that is how it’s going to be…” Garrett says, frowning at Carver, “Fine. Be safe, you hear me? I’ve had enough tragedy to last me a lifetime.”

“Don’t you worry about me, brother,” Carver cracks a grin, even if it’s leagues grimmer than it ought to be. “I’m not the trouble magnet in the family.”

Another thing Garrett can write onto the lift of fuckups in his life.

Everything beyond then is a blur.

Carver pulls rank and gets Imra and him on the next available boat. Garrett almost can’t look, _can’t stand to watch it_ , but he can feel the bile rise up in the back of his throat as he watches his brother order and command the workers like he was born for it.

They’re put in one of the rowboats. Taken to the ship. Shown a place to sleep.

He collapses against the inner hull of the ship, below deck, Imra by his side.

She hasn’t said a single thing ever since Evelyn… since she… ever since her sister died.

Fuck.

She’s dead.

And he couldn’t do a single fucking thing to stop it.

* * *

He doesn’t know how much time passes.

The gentle lull of the ship rocking back and forth as they said south doesn’t tell the time.

Garrett falls back asleep.

* * *

They’re both awake.

“I never asked,” he croaks as he leans against the wooden wall behind him. “Your mother and father, were they…”

“They’re i-in Orlais,” Imra rasps out. “A-at the summer residence.”

“Ah,” Garrett nods. “Good.”

“Good?”

He can’t meet her eyes.

“They weren’t there. They’re not _dead_.”

Imra’s voice cracks as she begins to weep. Garrett wraps an arm around her, draws her in to his chest.

He doesn’t say a word when her nails dig into his skin as her crying only intensifies.

* * *

Amaranthine is a right proper mess if he’s ever seen one.

It reminds him of simpler, less complicated days. Reminds him of his mother begging to be let into Kirkwall, to see his uncle, to try and scramble together a semblance of a normal life for what remains of her family.

That’s gone too.

It’s Kirkwall all over again. It’s the Blight all over again.

Only, this time he’s not the one who’s lost someone.

He’s not sure if it’s a light or dark point in this whole fiasco.

Officials haul the refugees to the city hall, crowds them all together in camps of tents and makeshift huts—an Alienage for humans. They’re not allowed to leave until they’ve registered themselves on the lists.

Garrett takes Imra and leaves under the cover of night.

* * *

He steals two horses, throws Imra on top of one, and they’re off.

They ride for days.

Ferelden isn’t an unknown, it’s been his home for most of his life.

And his family has been on the run for as long as he can remember. He knows how to hide, how to make it seem like he’s nothing but a traveling merchant.

Imra is harder to conceal. Neither of them can claim to have the proper age gap for them to be parent and child, and their looks are too different for them to claim to be siblings.

She has kissed him, yes, but that was before Ostwick burnt and her sister died disfigured and in pain in a half-wrecked building.

He can’t introduce them as husband and wife. It’s too soon, they’re not on steady ground as of yet, and he can’t afford to fuck everything up even further than it already is.

Imra takes that decision right out of his hands, though. Plucks it like wings from a butterfly.

“My husband and I are from the Free Marches, we fled after the Kirkwall disaster,” she says to a curious merchant when they stop briefly to resupply at a trading post just outside the borders of the Bannorn.

“It took so long for you to come from Kirkwall to Ferelden?”

“We were… h-held up in Ostwick,” she replies with only the slightest of trembles in her voice and immediately Garrett is there, a show of silent support as he tugs his ‘wife’ closer, earning a sympathizing look from the merchant.

* * *

She curls into his embrace that night.

He doesn’t say a word. Just holds her. Keeps her warm.

* * *

Days turn into weeks.

They stay on the road.

* * *

“We need a place to stay.”

“What do you suggest?”

“We find a remote village—the northern parts of Ferelden are full of them.”

“If you’re certain.”

“I am.”

* * *

He leads them to Crestwood.

A small village, isolated enough after the Blight and its aftermath that no one will ask questions to anyone willing to settle and bring more work, more commerce to the place.

The mayor grants them a house of the outskirts of the farmland, not too close and not too far, and it’s fucking _perfect_.

A functioning well stands not far from the doorway and a worn barn is built straight up against the house, but other than that the grounds are practically bare. Inside there is a stove, a closed off privy and another closed room that houses a worn, rackety bed.

“Well, at least it’s not a complete dump,” Garrett says in a too-chipper tone, attempting to bring just a hint of joy into the place.

Imra shrugs.

She’s been quiet for the whole trek, especially since stopping at the trading post.

She gently puts down her rucksack on the floorboards and walks around.

“So, this is home now.”

Garrett nods, gives her a tentative smile, “Welcome home.”

Imra smiles back at him, a timid, little thing and it’s the most radiant thing he’s seen in _days_.

“Welcome home, Garrett.”

* * *

**End of Act 1**


	15. Chapter 15

**Act 2**

* * *

 

“Father, you asked to see me?”

Maxwell steps inside his father’s office and quietly closes the doors behind him, his armor making small noises as the metal plates grate on each other.

From the other end of the room his father watches him with tired, weary eyes, whilst his mother stands by the windows, clutching at the back of the divan hard enough for her knuckles to whiten and tears streaming down her face.

“Mother?” Maxwell takes a step towards her but stops when she holds up a hand and waves him towards his father. “What happened?”

“Ostwick has fallen.”

For a moment it feels as if the wind has been knocked out of his lungs as Maxwell stumbles backwards, eyes wide and mouth agape. The room seems to twist and turn around him, and a ringing noise echoes in his ears.

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me,” Edmure Trevelyan spits as his eyes flicker down to a letter in front of him, lying on the desk. “The city has fallen. It was sacked by the Circle.”

“N-no, it _can’t have_! Evelyn would have done something, she would have stopped it befo—”

“ _Evelyn is dead_!”

His father jerks up from behind the desk and walks to his wife, takes her into his arms as she hopelessly sobs against his chest. Loud, piercing wails are ripped from his mother’s throat as Maxwell now fully collapses onto the floor under the weight of the shocking news. A trebuchet blasting down the walls would have been more subtle than his father’s curt, _furious_ —distraught response had been. Even so, Maxwell can do little else but sit there in a heap of armor and gangly limbs and shock. Utter, complete _shock_.

“Dead?”

His voice is raspy, grainy as if his vocal cords have been bared to the world and dragged across rubble.

His mother sobs harder against his father’s chest, inconsolable to his soft murmurs and gentle strokes across her hair.

“What about—does Eidreck and Ivan know?”

“Eidreck has already departed to aid the Teyrn rebuild what he can,” Edmure sighs. “You and Ivan were requested as well, but I declined on both of yours behalves, seeing as the two of you being stationed here with the family is an agreement between the Chantry and us.”

“You’d let your heir leave to help with rebuilding the city, but not the spares?”

Edmure scowls. “You are part of the Chantry, Maxwell. The only reason you are still here and not sent to quell the last ragged remains of the Ostwick Circle is because of the agreement between the Knight-Commander here and I.”

“What of… what of Imra?”

“No one has heard anything from her,” his father shakes his head. “The last reports from the city guards say that she was seen boarding a ship with refugees heading for Amaranthine. We know little else.”

“But she was alive,” Maxwell presses and steps closer to his father. “You’re sure of that?”

“It doesn’t matter what we are sure of anymore, Maxwell—it is out of our hands now. There is nothing we can do.”

“Nothing we can—do you even _hear_ yourself, Father?!” Maxwell roars, knuckles white from the tight grip he has on his sword’s handle. “Imra is out there somewhere, _alone_ , and you won’t even send anyone to find her?!”

His father’s eyes fasten on him this time, but where they were red-rimmed with sadness before, now they blaze with barely held-back anger.

“Your sister could have done anything, boy, yet she chose to abandon her home— _again_ , might I add! She cares little for this family and apparently less for her own home! Tell me, why should I waste any more time on a girl too obsessed with has-beens and ruining her own reputation for the sake of one man?”

“You don’t know that!”

“And do you? Do you claim to know your sister’s heart inside and out?”

“Better than you or Mother has ever done!” Maxwell spits out. “She is my sister, no matter what. Nothing will change that, not now, not _ever_!”

“Watch your tongue!” Edmure roars and releases his wife from the tight hold he had had on her. “I am your father and Lord! I demand respect in my own house!”

“You are her father as well!” Maxwell yells right back at him, the anger and fury making him see red as he gnashes teeth against teeth. “She is _family_ , Father! She is your youngest daughter!”

Edmure’s face is twisted by the snarl that erupts from his lips.

“Have you been to Kirkwall?” he demands of Maxwell. “Have you seen the carnage created by that bastard mage who blew it all to smithereens? Imra… she has made her choice. I will not waste any more time or energy on trying to change her mind. I doubt that anyone here in Thedas actually _can_.”

“I’ll do it. I’ll find her—actually bring her back.” Maxwell says, determination shining in his eyes. “You’ll have my word on it, Father!”

“You will not leave. You were stationed here alongside Ivan as part of an agreement with the Knight-Commander, Maxwell. You will honor this.”

“It is an agreement that I fail to see doing any good!”

“Boy, it is an agreement that has ensured that you are still alive and not buried beneath rubble and fire back in Ostwick!”

“And yet now it does nothing but hinder us, seeing as there is work to be done! Father, we should be back in Ostwick, helping those still remaining!”

“Your duty is to your commanders and your family. Everything else can be dealt with at a later date.”

“That is a chance that I am more than willing to take, Father,” Maxwell quips at his father and frowns. “I am not about to give up on my only remaining sister because you are too tired to give her a chance.”

“ _I_ have given her nothing but chances over the last eight bloody years to try and make her see reason! Do you think that I have not hoped that she would turn her back on that craven of a Fereldan and come back where she belongs?”

“You think that sending Ivan to her and demanding that she immediately leave everything behind in Kirkwall is the same as giving her a choice?”

“Your brother failed to do such a simple thing because of that man, because that _mage_ twisted her mind! She is a shame to this family and its name, and I will hear no more of this! My decision on this is final, Maxwell.”

“Please, sweetling,” his mother cries from her place by the windows, her oh-so-lovely face twisted from the grief that has her in its grasp. “I have already lost my only daughters, please do not ask me to say goodbye to another one of my children.”

Maxwell swallows and looks away. “I’m sorry, Mother,” he says. “I will bring her back. I promise you, I won’t stop until I have Imra back here with me.”

The sigil fastened to his tunic, the one marking him as one of the Templars, one of the protectors of Thedas, he rips from the cloth and places it on his father’s desk.

“You can send that back to the Knight-Commander, along with my letter of resignation, Father.”

And just like that he leaves.

His mother’s sobs sear his eardrums, tears at his heart with poison-laced knives, but Maxwell never looks back as he strides down the lavish corridors of his family’s summer residence, ignoring the furious shouts coming from his father behind him.

* * *

He finds Ivan in the private Chantry connected to the Trevelyan residence, on bent knees before the statue of Andraste and a carefully blank expression on his face as he prays. Maxwell glances up at the golden woman before him and utters a quick prayer as he enters the hall. He stops just behind Ivan and sits down on one of the pews as he waits for his brother to finish up his business.

It is just the two of them in here, not even the Sisters usually milling about, dusting off the reliefs or other decorations within the Chantry.

The absence of activity makes him squirm in his seat, and the quiet, constant stream of prayer from Ivan does little to help.

Maxwell huffs and leans back against the pew, a hand coming up to wrestle some loose hair behind one ear.

Finally, after what seems like an eternity, Ivan rises from the ground and turns around to look at him. From this close, his brother’s usually so austere and scowling face seems even angrier than usual.

“Maxwell.”

“Brother.”

Ivan’s eyes harden the longer he stares at Maxwell. His gaze lingers on his chest, specifically on the now-empty spot where the sigil of the Sword of Mercy would have been.

“You are leaving, I take it.”

“I am.”

“For our youngest?”

“Father won’t do anything to help her. I don’t want Imra to be out there alone and think that no one from her home wanted to come and help her out.”

“She is a sinner, you know this.” Ivan frowns.

“Imra has befriended a mage, Ivan, not declared herself a Maleficar.”

“She might as well have, what with the nature of their relationship.”

Frustrated, Maxwell turns around and lets out a groan. “I’m not getting anywhere with this.”

“Then why did you come here if you knew that our conversation would only end in the two of us at odds with one another?”

“Because I want to believe that you still care about her! She’s our sister, Ivan, _our last sister_! Evelyn is dead, slaughtered by the mages for all we know, and we’re—”

“We are doing as we are told to do, by Father or by the Chantry, it doesn’t matter. Maxwell, you cannot simply abandon your lot in life. You _chose_ to become a Templar because you believed that it was the right thing to do, did you not?”

“You know that I did.”

“Then, _believe_ in them. Believe in Father and in the Order.”

“How can you even say that? The Order is a ruin of what it once was, it has been ever since before the Kirkwall debacle happened. Now our own family is turning its back on its members because they don’t fit into the narrow worldview that it has!” Maxwell lashes out, the bout of anger making him lightheaded.

“You cannot change everyone’s mind at your own pace, Max,” Ivan steps up before him and places his hands on his brother’s shoulders. “Go to Father and take back your Templar sigil. Fasten the Sword of Mercy on your chest and be _proud_.”

Maxwell bites his lip, looks to the floor as he shakes his head.

“No.”

Ivan frowns once more. “Excuse me?”

“You—you’re wrong,” Maxwell says and wrestles free from Ivan’s hold.

“Maxwell, listen to me. I loved Evelyn as much as you do, as much as anyone in this family did!” Ivan hisses. “It kills me inside with every breath I take that we were not with our sister to aid her in her battle, but she is dead and her soul has passed on to the Maker’s side. Do not let grief blind you into doing something that you will regret.”

“You think that grief is what motivates me here?” Maxwell gapes. “Are you truly so callous that you can’t see beyond your own bloody nose?!”

“Do not—”

“Imra is our sister, our own _blood_ , and you want to just leave her be, because of who she has chosen to love?”

“You approve of it?”

“The Maker knows that I don’t, but right now we need to stick together— _all of us_! The world is changing, Ivan, and if we keep avoiding it, we are only inviting calamity down upon us!”

“The Grand Cleric of Kirkwall will do something, she has already decreed that—”

“It doesn’t matter what the new Grand Cleric decrees or doesn’t decree! If the mages wanted to it would only be too easy for them to overthrow every single Templar stronghold in the Free Marches, with how little organization we currently have. A single group of specially trained Templars are not going to make the difference between winning or losing everything against the mages.”

“You are underestimating our brothers and sisters.”

“ _Your_ brothers and sisters, Ivan, not mine. Not anymore.”

“You are abandoning the Order on a whim to find our sister, Maxwell, do you really think that any of this will end well for you?”

“So you would rather watch the family fall to ruin?”

“A single member of the family won’t be so important to the Maker’s plans for this world, Maxwell.”

“I’ve heard enough,” Maxwell spits at his brother. “I came to tell you goodbye, and to explain where I would be going. Now I see that I was wrong to think that you would ever approve.”

“You should have realized that from the very start, Max,” Ivan hisses at him, just as venomously as his younger brother sounded just moments ago.

Mumbling a curse Maxwell stomps out of the Chantry, uttering a swift apology to the Revered Mother entering as he almost stumbles into her on his way out, before he heads straight for the stables.

It won’t take long for him to get out of here, ride a horse to the nearest harbor with a ship headed for Ferelden and then start his search from there. He’ll comb through the entire fucking coastline if that’s what it takes for him to get a lead on where his sister just might be at the moment.

His thoughts like this continues, delving deeper—darker with every step he takes, and by the time that he is in front of the stables, he might as well look like a thundercloud more than a man on a mission.

“I need my horse saddled and supplies for a fortnight readied alongside it,” he asks of a passing stablehand, “Best be quick about it, boy.”

The young lad shoots off with a nod, leaving Maxwell to look out over the courtyard.

He’s bad at waiting, always needing something to do, something to occupy his hands with while he waits for whatever it is that he needs to.

His mother’s tears echo in the back of his head once more. Her voice cutting like a knife as it begs him again and again and again to just go back inside the manor, find his father and apologize. It would be easier. _So much easier_.

And Imra would be alone out there. Maker’s balls, he doesn’t even know if she’s still _alive_.

The stablehand returns with his horse, all saddled up and the supplies already packed. Maxwell on top of the steed in moments, the motions automatic. He reaches down to his belt and unbuckles the sword from it, again just as automatic as the motions before, and has it strapped down behind him as securely as it can get.

He looks up after that.

His mother’s in the courtyard, handkerchief pressed against her cheeks to soak up the tears.

Maxwell can hear her sobs all the way across the courtyard.

With a sigh he lets his heels dig into the horse’s sides, spurring it into a sharp trot as he rides through the gates.

Her cries still ring in his ears.


	16. Chapter 16

The sound of thunder echoes between the hills, and a flash signals the lightning’s arrival seconds after. She can hear the harsh clash of raindrops against the wooden roofing, and the soft _plops_ that the same raindrops make when they drip down from there and onto the flowerbeds planted all around the house.

This… this is home now.

Crestwood is home.

But she doesn’t care.

It feels so very strange after spending so long behind the thick walls around Ostwick, to suddenly have nothing but a few layers of wooden planks between her and the unforgiving wilderness outside.

She has forgotten how drafty wooden houses can be after having lived the past several months behind thick, brick walls with plush carpets and warm blankets and heated fireplaces in almost every room. Forgotten how it feels to huddle beneath worn blankets and drag an extra carpet over the bed because there’s no one but her in the damn thing to warm it up properly. Forgotten the luxury of a constant supply of warm, deliciously heated warm water.

But as time goes on, she has no doubt that she will once more find enjoyment in it all once more, that she will revel in how she suddenly has to _work_ for everything.

Garrett hasn’t complained about any of it, only says that he will take the spot on the bed closest to the wall, so she won’t have to deal with wind leaking through between the planks and chilling her body, and Imra had just about started crying when he tells her. His body gives off enough warmth on his own to heat a small oven, so she says nothing of it, merely accepts what he wants and lets him do as he pleases.

That first night in the hut, it’s the best sleep she’s gotten since they fled from Ostwick.

And Garrett’s never-ending supply of goodwill only continues in the days afterwards.

Those first few days in the house, she barely knows up from down. She just… sits by the fire, a thick blanket wrapped around her shoulders, as Garrett is off somewhere. This… this existence, it is nothing but a nightmarish hellscape that she just can’t seem to care about.

She doesn’t care. It is not _Ostwick_. There’s no home here, no Evelyn or Mama or Maxwell—oh Maker, _Maxwell_.

Her brother, Evelyn’s twin.

Does he know? Does he know that Evelyn found her untimely death in the wreckage of Ostwick’s harbor? That his little sister has escaped to Ferelden and disappeared among the scores of refugees while his twin’s body was barely cold?

Tears drip down her cheeks.

Those first couple of days… they aren’t living, not really. All she does is sit there, letting Garrett coax her into moving around, into eating, sleeping.

But. But is it even _worth it_ , anymore?

She hopes so, vehemently wishes that it can be worth it. But everything around her feels… _dark_. Dark and suffocating and just altogether horrible.

Garrett is her light shining in that grim darkness.

It is not his fault that this has happened, that events unfolded the way they did. She knows this. But her knowing the truth and what her mind makes up in the depth of night are two very different things. When she sleeps, she sees terrible things, fire consuming everything, Evelyn screaming for help as her face melts before her very eyes, children dying by the dozens as Templars march in and cut them down without prejudice.

The mind is a terrible, wonderful thing.

“Imra?”

She is brought out of her rather dark musings by the sound of the front door opening, and when she looks up, she sees Garrett.

He looks… tired. Spent. Wet from the drizzle outside.

His hair sticking in odd directions, beard as unruly as ever and bags beginning to form beneath his eyes, he looks like a proper Fereldan commoner as he stumbles over beside her and collapses into the only other chair in the house.

“Welcome home, Garrett,” she mutters softly and takes his hand in hers.

It’s cold, his hand, that is, and so she begins to rub soft circles into his palm as the two of them sit in front of the fire.

“That’s nice,” he hums while rubbing his temples with his free hand before scratching at his beard. “Keep going, please?”

She lets out a chuckle at his words. “It doesn’t take much to entertain you these days, does it?”

“Not when it’s so nice, no,” he yawns before turning his head to look at her.

She meets his eyes with a smile, but then Garrett frowns and makes to sit up straighter. Whatever he sees in her eyes has him alert in moments.

“You’ve been crying.”

It’s not a question, but a fact. Imra looks away and fastens her gaze on his hand in her lap instead.

“I—”

“What is it? Is something wrong? Have someone said something to you?”

“I— _no_! Maker, no, no one has said something to me.”

“The what’s wrong?”

“I just—” she bites her lip. “I’m… I’m scared, Garrett.”

“Scared?”

“I keep… I keep seeing _things_ ,” she whispers. “E-Evelyn and swords and Ostwick burning. When I sleep it’s—”

She cuts herself off before she can say anything else and her cheeks warms as red-hot embarrassment floods her. A familiar sting behind her eyes has her blink rapidly as if that will be enough to keep the tears from falling.

It doesn’t.

“It’s as if you’re suffocating, yeah?”

Imra hesitates for a moment, then nods, still not looking at him.

“I was the same. Back when the Qunari attacked.”

Now, _that_ has her look up at him.

“While I was—”

“Yes.”

“Garrett,” she breathes, “you never said a word.”

“I didn’t want to wake you. Not that I could, you sleep like the bloody dead.”

A strangled sob makes it out past her lips as she gives him a wobbly smile. “You’re being mean.”

“I’m being honest.”

She pushes against his shoulder as if to deny it. It’s like punching a brick wall, he barely even moves, and she is left with an aching hand.

“Imra,” he says, drawing her attention. “I can’t… I can’t promise that everything will get better right away. It didn’t for me, not for a long time. But I’m going to be here for you and I will help every step of the way. I _promise_ , do you hear me? I promised your sister that I’d take care of you and I’m not about to break that promise, no matter what happens,” he says, strokes her cheek with gentle, gentle hands and wipes away the tears.

“I believe you,” she chokes out, clenches her hands around his on her cheeks, and smiles.

He’s right, after all.

It won’t be easy and she won’t get better right away, but he will be there if she needs it, for every single step of the way.

* * *

Life continues.

It has to.

* * *

Her dreams are fire and screams and maniacal laughter and then she’s awake with a scream of her own stuck in her throat and tears blurring her vision.

It’s not the first time she’s happy that their home is a way out from the main part of the village.

When she lurches out of bed and falls on her knees the scream gets caught and mixes with sobbing. Everything around her is unfamiliar, unsafe and she just wants her _home_. Something moves around above her, and as she sits there on the ground, with tears running down her cheeks and snot dribbling from her nose, warm arms wrap around her as a beard scratches at her face.

“Shhh,” someone whispers and there Garrett is with his warm presence and strong arms and Imra just about starts wailing like a wounded animal.

She wants to.

Instead she struggles to keep it inside of her, shivering in his arms from the coldness of the house and the wind that leaks in through the small cracks between the planks, and hiccups with tears whetting her cheeks. When she is maneuvered around to sit across his lap, a cloth is pressed against her lips to wipe away the traces of bile that still clings to her skin there. Imra accepts the cloth without a word and presses it hard against her lips, not caring when her nerves protest from the pressure she’s using.

Garrett’s hands take over after a moment or two, tugging it from her cramping fingers.

“What happened?” he whispers against her hair while his free hand combs through the tousled strands.

Imra says nothing in answer to his question, instead opting to tuck herself beneath his chin and huddle against his chest as her hands tighten in the fabric of his sleeping tunic.

“I left her to _die_ , Garrett. I told my own sister that I was _disgusted_ by her, and then she’s dead,” she whispers against his neck. “What if I had just waited, if I had just—”

“Imra, stop,” he interrupts her with a sigh and a firm shake. “Evelyn’s death is _not_ your fault. It was not you who threw that fireball into the building, it was not you who decided to level half of Ostwick because of one man’s actions.”

“I might as well have.”

“That’s not—I don’t,” Garrett struggles for a moment before he holds her out in front of him by the shoulders and leans back to look down at her. “Imra. Evelyn died because of circumstances out of control for either of us. You solve nothing by damning yourself into thinking that it is your fault, because it is _not_ your fault.”

This time Imra does nothing to halt the tears as they press behind her eyes.

* * *

Imra wakes to birds chirping and the sound of curses from the kitchen.

There’s a moment where she blinks and tries to figure out where she is, but then the smells of Garrett, of their home and the slightly-alarming scent of burning bacon hits her nostrils and she’s back in Crestwood, in the tiny home that they call their own, in her bed.

Garrett must have moved her after she fell asleep on him. He’s cleaned away her sick as well, if the bucket and damp patch on the floorboards are any indication.

“Garrett?”

Her voice is scratchy and hoarse from the crying, but he must have heard her because the noises from outside of the bedroom stops and then the door is thrown open. Garrett grins as he sees her awake, still sleep-addled form in bed, beard unruly as ever and giving him the appearance of manic energy coating his entire body.

 “You’re awake!”

The smell of burnt bacon grows stronger as he stands there in the doorway.

Imra grunts at him and scowls when a beam of sunlight filters in through the ratty curtains that came with the house, and shields her eyes from the bright light.

“I made breakfast.”

“You mean, you went into the kitchen without supervision and is now slowly burning down the hut?”

Garrett gasps at her growl and puts a hand on his chest, “Dearest, you wound me so! Your doting lover has been slaving in the kitchen in order to bring you the finest of rural breakfasts, and this is how you decide to repay me?”

“My doting lover will be thanked if he does in fact _not_ burn down the kitchen whilst trying to make breakfast for me,” Imra sighs as she wraps the blankets around her body and crawls out of bed. A quick hand through her hair reveals it to be an unsalvageable mess of knots and tangles and sweat, most certainly enough for her to warrant a proper wash before anything else happens today.

“Will you be joining me, my lady?”

Imra’s scowl is directed at Garrett this time as she swats out in his general direction. “I will as soon as you are no longer burning the bacon, Garrett. The butcher is not cheap, especially not with winter coming in soon,” Imra notes and she has to hide a smirk when she sees the realization set in before Garrett makes a mad dash for the kitchen, roaring obscenities the entire way.

Imra sits on the edge of the bed for a few moments, breathing in the dewy scent of morning, listens to the birds chirping up a storm outside and feels the coolness of the floorboards against her feet.

She is not alright, and she won’t be for quite a while. But that is alright. Because she has Garrett here, she has someone with her who understands her, who has been in the same situation, albeit through different circumstances, and she would not trade that for anything in the world.

So she smiles, wraps the blankets tighter around her form, and trots out to greet a new day.


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PSA for wholesome fluff

There are plenty of positive, poetic things to say about his loving Motherland.

He’s Fereldan; if asked about it, he’d be able to wax poetically about the wonderful mountainous landscapes to the western border alongside Orlais, or how the farmland of the Bannorn are exquisite in summer with both fields and forests abloom, but not even the most wonderous of summertime can detract from the fact that the transition from balmy autumns to bitter winter is a right proper _bitch_.

Garrett’s a born and bred Fereldan, he’s allowed to talk shit about the seasons in his own home country.

With winter comes the cold and complaining about the drafts in the house and sewing new curtains and warmer clothes for both Imra and himself, as well as properly stocking the pantry with nonperishables and making damn sure that those pawprints he keeps finding on the outside of the fence around the house _bloody stays on the outside_.

He has no time for wolves, whether the mutts are hungry or not.

Life continues. It’s cold and miserable and almost, just _almost_ , manages to make Garrett long for the sluggish, rainy winters of Kirkwall.

But only _just_.

“Frederic, my good man!” Garrett smiles as he slams open the door to the inn and stomps up the bar, snowflakes dotting his hair with white, glittering specks. “Might there be some news this fine evening?”

The grizzly barkeep cracks a grin and nods at his patron before fishing out a mug and topping it with ale. “I have to say, them news of Templars marchin’ through fields and searching houses like them damn please is startin’ to worry me quite a bit. Some of the other men here in the village ‘ave started talkin’ ‘bout getting a militia set up if they get too close.”

“Templars? In Crestwood?”

“Yeah,” the older man nods before letting out a huff of indignation. “It’s bloody bonkers is what it is. The closest thing resembling magic is at Soldier’s Peak what with them Wardens milling ‘bout up there. Any further and they’d have to hit up Denerim and hunt down the Court Mage there.”

Something tickles in the back of his mind, the fact that he practically already knows the answer to what he needs to ask, but he does it anyway. “Where are they from?”

At this Frederic’s face twists in a scowl and he spits on the floor. “ _Orlais_. The Free Marches too, something about a select few from that new Order of theirs.”

Ringing echoes between his ears but Garrett nonetheless nods and thanks the man, even as he somehow makes it to one of the tables closest to the fire, mug of ale in hand. It would only have been a matter of time anyway before they would have found him, but still… he thought that he’d still have some time before everything would start to crumble down around him.

This close to the fire, Garrett feels the warmth sear slightly as he drags a chair as close to the hearth as he possibly can before settling down in front of it.

Maker’s non-existent tits, he doesn’t need this. For that matter, neither does Imra!

“Not to worry, Master Garrett,” one of the patrons, their neighbor from Linden Farm, tries to soothe as he settles in the other chair by the fire and smiles. “You and the missus will be just fine, you’ll see. If the worst is upon us all, then the wife and I have plenty of room over in our homestead, you’ll have somewhere to go if the going gets tough.”

It continues to amaze him sometimes, the way that all the small, tightly knitted communities stick together, but then again, all of this might just very well be stemming from the fact that Garrett has spent almost a whole decade in the Free Marches, Kirkwall specifically, where everything was a right proper pit of deceit and despair, where no one would have been caught dead trying to outright help someone else, unless they would have greatly benefitted from it all.

“That is a mighty fine gesture, but forgive me for saying that I sorely hope that it won’t come to that.”

“No offence taken,” the farmer laughs. “I imagine you’re already fretting enough as it is what with the wolves being on the move. That house of yours is damnably far from the rest of the village.”

“Nothing we can do about it unless you’ve suddenly figured out how to magically move houses and land closer,” Garrett chuckles and downs his ale in several gulps. “Wouldn’t that be grand.”

“Mighty much,” the farmer agrees and slaps a hand on Garrett’s shoulder. “Now, I’ve a wife worrying at home, and the storm doesn’t seem to want to let up any time soon. Better head home soon.”

“I’ll go with you,” Garrett offers. “Only came in to warm the hands and toes before going out again.”

“You’d think demons had been called down upon us with the way that wild is howling,” the barkeep calls as the two men stand up and prepare to leave. “Both of you be careful out there, I don’t want to find you two icy pricks out there come spring and explain it to your wives.”

“Bugger off, you mother-hen.”

“It’s yet to kill me off, so something’s obviously workin’.”

“We’ll be careful, _Ma_!” Garrett’s neighbor cackles in jest before he pushes open the door and both he and Garrett tumble outside into the icy gales.

* * *

He comes home with the frost beginning to coat his beard and bushy eyebrows, and curses up a right storm as he stomps on the floor to dislodge the snow and ice on his coat before hurrying in further inside where the fire is burning and the smell of food is thick in the air.

Imra sits by the stove with a bundle of yarn lying on the floor in front of her and her hands busy with knitting needles. Her head shoots up the moment she hears him cursing, though, and her knit-work is abandoned in the chair’s seat as she hurries over.

“Garrett!”

Every instance of enthusiasm to greet him, however, disappears the moment that he presses an icy kiss to her cheek and soaks her collar in the remnants of snow still clinging to his clothing.

“ _Garrett_!” she shrieks and tries to worm away, only to be caught in his arms. “You’re _cold_!”

“Of course I’m cold!” he proclaims merrily as he drags her closer and nuzzles his soaked beard against her cheek, eliciting another giggle-shriek from his lover. “It’s a right proper storm outside and everything, which you’d know, my lady love, if you ever deemed it necessary to put your lovely head outside this rundown shed of a hut that we call home.”

He finally lets her down and Imra hurries back to the stove, cheeks flushed and eyes dancing with mirth as she looks back at him over her shoulder. “I’ve been plenty outside, you absolute wretch! How else do you think that I’ve gotten onions for the soup?”

“Onion in _soup_?! What is this, the old Tevinter Empire?”

“You cease that spoiled behavior right this instant, Garrett Hawke, or so help me, I’ll—”

“You’ve read those Orlesian cookbooks again,” he interrupts her and sighs dramatically as he settles by the table. “Maker forgive me, but my highborn wife is attempting to change me from my hearty, Fereldan ways!”

Imra’s snort says all that he needs to know about his performance.

“She even mocks the man who runs this very house!”

“What man? The only one I see here is a man- _child_ running rampant.”

“Such cruel words, my dearest.”

“Well, you can help your dearest out by setting the table and throwing on an extra log into the fire. It’s starting to wane.”

“Imra, if I put any more wood into that fireplace we’ll be without a house before midnight,” he laughs and steps up behind her to wrap his arms around her waist. Garrett presses his lips against her cheek and smiles against it. “You don’t need to worry about anything going cold here. Magic _does_ have its perks, you know.”

Imra hums in agreement, even as she tries to avoid the parts of him that are still quite chilled from being outside, but eventually turns her head to look up at him, one hand still on the wooden spoon stirring the soup. “I know. But I still like my fires hot, you know that.”

“Don’t I ever,” Garrett chuckles. “You’ll probably drive us into debt before the winter is over.”

“I will not!” she denies as she grabs the ladle hanging on the side of the stove with one hand and gestures to the set table with the other. “Grab your bowl, the soup is done.”

He grumbles, but eventually lets go of her after pressing the cold tip of his nose against the shell of her ear and grabs both of the bowls. His eyes never leave her face as he watches how she hurries to scoop up enough broth and vegetables, or as she sits down by the one rackety table that they own.

“It’s… interesting,” he says after getting a few mouthfuls of the soup into his mouth. “Certainly not something that I would have thought of.”

“Well, forgive me if I don’t know my way well enough around a kitchen to be able to recreate the meals that Orana used to make for you,” she huffs, the tips of her ears turning pink.

“It tastes delicious, Imra,” Garrett smiles. “You know that I only joke about your cooking, right?”

A blush spreads on her cheeks. “I know.”

It strikes him then, utterly out of the blue, how _domestic_ this whole thing is.

He works from morning to evening, either helping out hauling wood, hunting game for the butcher, even clearing out the few bandits that prey on the village every now and then, while here at home he has Imra, his ‘wife’, waiting for him with a smile on her lips and hot food standing ready for both of them. Ignoring the fact that the hut they live in feels only _minutes_ away from collapsing around their ears and that there is no Bodahn or Sandal or Orana to help out with the chores, it almost feels like back in Kirkwall. The same sense of family, of belonging, is back where it should be, and he could not be happier.

Now, if only…

“Actually,” he hesitates for a moment before continuing. “There’s something that I’ve been meaning to ask you.”

Imra looks up from her dinner, a question in her eyes and a peel of onion sticking out between her lips. “What is it?”

“Does it… I mean, what are your— _urgh_!”

Imra’s hand wraps around his own and her fingers laces with his. “There’s no rush, Garrett.”

“No, I just—” he cuts himself off and glares at the bowl in front of him. “I just want to know… does… does it bother you that I call you ‘wife’?”

 _That_ was probably not what she had been expecting.

“Does it… bother me?”

“Yes. It’s been… an awfully easy habit to get into, calling you my wife, that is, and I just… I remembered that I never asked you about it before doing it. So, does it bother you?”

She’s quiet for several moments as she shifts between looking at the table and at him, as if she doesn’t know where to fasten her gaze. “Well, I certainly didn’t expect _that_ to be what bugged you, that’s for sure.”

“But does it?”

“Does it bug me?” she sighs and leans back against her chair. A few strands of hair escapes the bun she’s worn all way, and she brushes the errand hairs behind her ear with a huff of annoyance. “Well, in the beginning, it certainly did. Like you said, you took charge and set up a believable excuse for a man and woman to be on the run together, despite the fact that we had only just begun to… patch things up between us. However, when I look back on it, I don’t feel resentment for your actions.”

“But, how could you no—”

“Garrett, you and I both know that I was not in any state to call the shots during those first weeks on the road. If it hadn’t been for you, I would still be sitting somewhere down by the harbor and staring blankly, no doubt. It… I may not be happy with the circumstances that had both of us running out of the Free Marches, and the Maker knows that I still don’t get why Ferelden would be your first choice, but I don’t resent it. _Any of it_.”

He lets out a quivering breath that he wasn’t even aware of holding and a wobbly smile creeps up on his lips. “Thank you, Imra, that… that means _a lot_.”

They were still not… the same, honestly, there was no chance of them ever going back to just being the Champion and the apothecary that they had been back in Kirkwall before everything crumbled in fire and smoke and ash.

He stands from his chair and drags her with him. Without a word his arms close around her and brings her against his chest as he buries his nose in her hair. She smells of firewood and the soup she’s been slaving over the entire afternoon and _home_. That’s the thing that floors him the most. The smell of _home_ lingering in her hair, on her skin, on her breath and shining out of her eyes every time that he meets them with his own.

“I love you,” he murmurs. “I hope you know that no matter how long I was away from you, that I never stopped. I can’t ever stop doing it now that I finally found you again.”

“Garrett, I was never lost,” she smiles and presses her lips to his collarbone. “I was just waiting for you to find your way back again.”


	18. Chapter 18

Winter comes around in earnest only days after.

And with the winter comes the blackest darkness.

It is strange and most of all scary to see how bad winters can get in Ferelden, even the northern parts of the country, when all she has ever known are mildly cold winds and occasionally a light dusting of snow on the roofs and in the shade.

Ferelden is _vastly different_.

The wind howls in the night when she lies in bed, Garrett warm and safe beside her and snoring like a hibernating bear. It doesn’t take long for her to throw all thoughts of modesty out the proverbial window before she has plastered herself against his side, because like it or not, somehow the wind keeps finding a way inside, and sometimes the blankets are simply not enough to keep out the cold. It still boggles her mind how one rare morning where Imra is awake before Garrett for once, she finds the windows frosted over and spends almost an hour tracing figures on the panes with the silliest grin plastered on her face. But the lack of warmth… something has to be done about that, and she cannot wait for Spring to come and break the chilly hold that currently all of Ferelden is apparently experiencing.

Garrett only grumbles most mornings as he lets her wrap him in several layers before embarking on whatever errand it is that he has gotten himself involved in.

He never really speaks of whatever it is that he’s doing, and Imra has learnt to be happy with what he will tell her. It still hurts, a small part of her that she usually keeps buried away cries out and struggles against the fact that he’s still hiding something, that he won’t tell her why he left her behind in Ostwick almost six months ago and now he won’t say what it is that he keeps leaving for in the wee hours of the morning.

Imra promised him back in Ostwick that she wouldn’t press for answers, and she meant it, but that does not change the fact that it is slowly eating at her as she tries to twist and turn the events that has happened, desperate for anything to give her a clue into what happened back then.

There are days where she feels that she will never feel warm ever again, where she positions herself in front of the hearth with her knitting and several blankets swept around her. Those are typically the same days where Garrett stays at home with her and only ventures out if absolutely necessary. He’ll practice small, innocent spells or create dancing lights in all the colors of the rainbow, never caring that they could so easily be found out by a passing traveler, or a neighbor seeing strange lights coming through the windows.

She loves those days more than she will ever truly admit to anyone. And she thinks, only thinks, that Garrett likes them, too.

Since settling in Crestwood, he is too easily agitated by the smallest things. Everything that he deems suspicious or outright dangerous is kept at a distance, and it only grows worse from the day he hears that Templars are marching for Ferelden.

The Chantry is only responding to the news of utter chaos from both Kirkwall and Ostwick, she knows that, but it nonetheless results in Garrett growing tenser and tenser with each passing day. It results in snapping and moments where the mood between them is fouler than the mire waters not far from the house. It results in prowling along the borders of the village with a zeal she has not seen in him since the earliest days in Kirkwall—back when they had still been young and foolish and innocent.

But time passes and the winter keeps its tight, freezing hold on all of Ferelden, and one day, Garrett cannot leave at all.

“Fucking weather!”

Garrett’s voice shakes her from the restless sleep she has been getting on by for the past few days and she blearily makes her way out of the bedroom, wrapping the blankets and sheets around her to trap what little warmth clings to them, to see Garrett scowling at the dunes of glittering white snow that blocks the way out of the house.

“What in the—”

“We’re snowed in,” he grumbles and looks over his shoulder at her, only for his eyebrows to rise as he turns to actually, properly look at her.

“What?”

“You’re…” his eyes sweep from her feet to her head. “Shouldn’t you dress warmer?”

Sleep still clogs her eyes and she rubs at it with the back of her hand as she scowls at him. “You took all the warmth with you.”

“I have to go. I’ve a meeting with the mayor and the others who want to start a militia.”

“Obviously not if we’re snowed in.”

He scowls before turning to glare at the wall of snow. Slowly the animosity in his gaze shifts into ponderous curiosity instead.

“I could just blast it away.”

She stares, sleep suddenly the farthest thing on her mind, “Garrett, _no_.”

“I’m just _saying_ that—”

“The answer is most certainly _no_. Andraste preserve us, you are _not_ firing off magic inside the bloody house.”

* * *

The two of them settle on letting magefire slowly melt a dent into the wall of snow, instead.

* * *

As Garrett gets a proper fire roaring, all while grumbling and huffing over the current predicament, Imra walks to the open door and curiously touches the mound of snow that blocks their entrance.

“I’ve never seen so much snow before…”

“It’s not all that it’s hyped up to me, I’m afraid.”

She lets out a soft huff of laughter before she turns and settles by the fire once more, knitting needles and hot tea in hand, and gestures for Garrett to join her. He sits by her side without a word, toying with her ball of yarn while shooting the slowly-melting snow in front of the door a furious look.

That look, alongside his unruly beard, is making him look almost savage in a way.

“Will you let me cut it?” she asks and loops the yarn around the needles.

“Hm?”

“The beard,” she elaborates, putting down her knitting-work and reaching out to run her fingers through the tips of his unruly facial hair. “Will you let me cut it?”

“You don’t like it?” he frowns.

“I _love_ the beard, dearest,” she placates him and smiles. “But if I am being honest, then you are starting to look more like an Avvar from the Highlands than a Fereldan farmer, Garrett. If you don’t watch yourself, the militia will be called upon to drive you from the lands.”

“Ha. Ha. _Ha_.” he scoffs good-naturedly. “You are being _very_ funny.”

“I have only learnt from the best.”

“Is that so?”

The grin he sends her is infectious and she cannot help but smile back at him, elated that the dour mood from earlier appears to be gone for now. She won’t have it spoiled now that she actually has him home and sitting still for once. She misses him too much.

“I’ll trim it,” he finally agrees after a few moments. “It _does_ look a little unruly, doesn’t it?”

“Just a little,” she agrees diplomatically and smiles at him. “Just a little.”

“How do you even stand this?” Garrett groans and flops backwards in the chair, resulting in the furniture dipping sharply before stabilizing. “I can’t even— _urgh_ , this is _torture_!”

“We are snowed in, Garrett, not locked up in the Gallows,” Imra chides, shooting him a wry look of amusement over his antics. “It’s not the end of the world.”

“Dear lady,” he sniffs and turns his nose up. “I would have you know that _I_ am a man of action, and therefore inactivity such as this is downright _fatal_ to me!”

Imra does _nothing_ to hide her laughter this time around, despite the scowl that Garrett sends her way.

“You are laughing at my pain and I do _not_ appreciate it one bit, you dreadful woman,” he snipes and moves to stand, only to halt when her hand comes up to wrap around his wrist and tries to pull him back down.

“Come sit with me,” she beckons and chuckles. “Garrett, please? I promise that I won’t laugh again.”

He looks at her, his free hand scratching at the unruly beard, before sighing.

“You are absolutely devious,” he says and sits down once more beside her, wrestling with the blankets that Imra has wrapped around herself until he is included as well, and nestles closer to her. “ _Devious_ , I tell you.”

“You’re _warm_ ,” she croons and presses her lips to the base of his throat.

She’s been… quite liberal with the touches as of late. Their hands brush more often than they’ve used to do before, there’s the sleeping close together and even now with the kisses that they keep sneaking every now and again, no matter what it is they are doing. The winter weather has only encouraged it.

It does absolute wonders for his mood, and hers as well.

The wind is picking up outside, despite it only being close to midday, and while most of the landscape outside is covered by snow as far as the eye can see, clouds are beginning to gather into rumbling, dark gray messes that promises either storms or rain or snow. Possibly all three of those.

“Is winter always like this here in Ferelden?” she mumbles and burrows closer to the furnace of warmth that is Garrett. “Is it always so… cold?”

“You’ve never had a winter like this back in the Marches?”

“No, the weather has always been too mild, it was never cold enough for the snow to stick.”

“That is a right, proper travesty is what it is,” he shudders. “Remind me to take you sledding when we can actually go outside.”

“Sledding? With _what_?”

“Oh, I’m sure that we’ll think of _something_.”

“Garrett, you are not magicking up something to sled with just because you can.”

Garrett frowns, “I wasn’t going to—”

“You were thinking it.”

He grimaces. “Well, I mean, you’re not—”

“I’m not wrong, am I?”

“Eh, details, my dear, nothing but details.”

She huffs but nonetheless shuffles closer, smiling when Garrett’s arm wraps around her shoulders and drags her closer to his chest.

“Amounts of snow like this,” Garrett sighs once she is settled against him. “I remember playing around like this with my brother and sister back when I was little. We moved around a lot since both Bethany and I had shown signs of magic early on, but whenever it snowed like this… our Father always had time to play around in the snow with us, no matter what.”

“It sounds nice,” Imra hums and smiles. Her eyelids droop as the mixture of calm and warmth slowly makes her drowsy. “Sounds tranquil.”

“I reckon he always did it because he hadn’t been able to do it back when he was a child himself, my Father,” he mutters.

“How so?”

“He was from the Circle.”

“Kirkwall’s?”

“No, Calenhad—the Fereldan Circle,” he elaborates. “Father was only on ‘loan’ in Kirkwall. Believe it or not, but before Meredith actually had the run of the city there was a time where the title ‘court enchanter’ actually was legal.”

“Like in Orlais and Ferelden?”

“No, it was still quite stifling from what I gathered,” he shakes his head and the hand around her shoulder tightens briefly. “Just… it apparently meant something back then.”

“And then they met? Lady Leandra and…?”

“Malcolm,” Garrett utters. “Malcolm Hawke.”

“Malcolm,” she echoes. “He sounds like a scoundrel.”

At this Garrett cracks a grin. “Oh, he absolutely was. Drove Mother up the walls most of the time, but then he’d either buy or magic up some flowers somehow and she would be sweet on him once again.”

“Oh? Then where are _my_ flowers, Champion?”

“Have you seen how the outside looks right now?” he squawks. “Where in Andraste’s name would you have me find flowers?”

“Magic me some,” she huffs.

“Oh, so me magicking up sleds or melting snow with fire is not allowed, but creating flowers out of nothing is alright?”

“You’ve figured me out.”

“I stand by my earlier words. You are _devious_.”

Quiet settles over the two of them, at some point abandoning the chairs and instead moving to the floor with all the blankets and sheets that they can procure to form a cocoon of warmth and comfort.

“There is something I have wondered about, actually,” she suddenly asks and raises her head from where it rests against Garrett’s shoulder. “Something about the Knight-Commander.”

“What about her?” Garrett’s eyebrows raise in befuddlement.

“What happened to Meredith?”

Garrett blinks in confusion. “What… happened to her?”

“Yes,” she nods.

“Well, uh,” he swallows and runs a hand through his hair, making parts of it stick in all directions. “After the explosion of the Chantry she and Orsino were just about ready to tear each other apart. Both of them were bloody idiots and trying to get me to choose a side.”

“Given the fact that you are standing here, in one piece more or less, I take it that you refused to do so?”

“Oh, _adamantly_ ,” he says blithely. “I had no idea what had just happened, other than the fact that Anders had apparently lost his marbles, and I told them as much.”

“How did they take it?”

“They were decidedly _not_ happy,” he chuckles bitterly. “But I got them to work together in cleaning up what had happened, and told them that for all I cared they could kill each other all they liked as soon as the civilians and the deceased had been seen to.”

“What happened after you found me?”

“Well, I continued to keep an eye on them and the moment that you were fit enough to travel I grabbed what I could fit into a backpack and got both of us out of there.”

“Along with the others.”

“Yes. That.”

“So, what now? She is still Knight-Commander, then?”

“From what Carver and I gathered while we were on the road, then yes. Don’t know about the First Enchanter, though. The news out of Kirkwall have all been less than what I would call ‘stellar’.”

“They got a new Grand Cleric appointed quite quickly,” Imra says and bites her lower lip. “She was the one who started the campaign to annul all of the Circles across the Free Marches.”

“Yeah, heard about that once we got to a village along the outskirts of the Vimmark Mountain range.”

“Do you think that they killed the First Enchanter?”

“I honestly wouldn’t put it past them.”

“And all of Crestwood is positively _buzzing_ with the news about those Orlesian templars marching through, soon,” she continues. “I can’t say that I am alright with that, if I am being honest.”

“Me, neither,” Garrett agrees and presses his lips to her temple. “But nothing will happen. The men of the village will make sure of it.”

“I know you will,” Imra smiles somberly and cranes her neck to look up at him proper. “My own knight in shining armor.”

“Well, more like roguishly handsome and quite the dashing character, I think.”

“Oh, shush you and take the bloody compliment!”

Outside the winter wind is howling and slamming against both door and windows, but in that moment, it feels as if nothing will ever tear away this calm, tranquil life that the two of them have carved from nothing.

They can only hope, after all.


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprise? I'm actually alive!

It is in the middle of winter when the Orlesian Templars arrive.

Everything is covered in a thick layer of snow and where the trees once had bare branches, icicles now hang long and thick. For all intents and purposes, Ferelden seems to have been covered in a dreamy illusion of tranquility.

Bundled in several layers of shawls, furs and leathers, both Garrett and Imra has decided to brave the harsh outside. The cold air has their noses and cheeks flushing a bright red before long, but not even that is enough to take away the smiles shared between the two of them, and only them.

But the tranquility is broken by the sound of marching feet and the _clink_ of heavy metal plates grinding against each other only moments after their arrival in the village.

The mayor frets from the moment that the Templars march into town, all covered in shining platemail from top to toe with the Sword of Mercy strapped to their chests and their shields, and their longswords gleaming with the all-too familiar, sickly sheen of magebane even from a distance.

Garrett cannot help the shudder that runs down his spine as he eyes the swords, only too familiar from the debilitating effects from back in Kirkwall. His arm around Imra’s shoulder tightens and he makes a point of staring straight ahead when she lets out a questioning noise.

“Crestwood bids you welcome, Sers,” the mayor says but he sounds even more tired than he already is, looking like a thin, sickly ghost with his gaunt cheeks and lanky hair.

The winter is harsh on everyone this year around, no matter how beautiful an illusion hides it.

“Our thanks,” the Captain grunts and removes his helmet with little ceremony. His arm lies across the waist as he gives a curt bow to the mayor. “We hope that this will only be a temporary arrangement.”

“Of course.”

The market-goers all take turns looking at the fully armored soldiers with varying degrees of distrust.

None of them trusts the Orlesians, not when practically all of the oldest villagers remember the Occupation and the shitshow that went down a handful of decades ago.

“Good people of Crestwood!” the Captain calls out and all attention is immediately on him. Garrett can’t help but wince slightly at the incredibly thick accent. “As you all know, the Chantry has sent us here to ensure that no mages from the incursion to the north have taken refuge among you! Know that any who are found to have knowledge of, or harbors, any mage will be severely punished by not only the crown, but also the Chantry!”

His words echo slightly among the wooden buildings. There’s a moment where the villagers all stare at the Orlesians as if they’re seriously contemplating throwing out a set of choice words and be done with their presence here, but things are rarely that easy.

But then the air clears as the butcher’s wife, with a babe on one arm and her purchases in the other, walks up to the Captain, curtsies and goes on her way.

Unconsciously Garrett draws Imra closer, one hand curling around her shoulder and the other placed against her hip, as he glares from where the two of them stand, halfway hidden behind the message-board. The two of them watch as the Templars march towards the small, modest Chantry at the top of the hill and Imra gives him a weary glance over her shoulder when his fingers tighten ever so slightly. She likes their presence here just about as much as he does, or ever will.

“I don’t like this,” he grumbles, presses his lips to the side of her head and his fingers loosen. “I don’t like _them_.”

“Neither of us can do anything about this,” Imra sighs and leans back against him. “And if the rumors about groups of rebel mages being in the vicinity of the village is true, then—”

“Then the mayor and the militia would not be even nearly enough to handle it, _I know_.”

That doesn’t mean that he has to be happy about it all.

She turns in his arms. “I’ll be just across the marketplace. Try not to start any trouble, yes?”

He grunts and tries to give her a convincing scowl, but the light press of her lips against his beard is enough for the corners of his mouth to twitch upwards in a lopsided smile. Garrett follows her wordlessly with his eyes as she cuts through the villagers milling about the marketplace and stops by one of the stalls with the basket over her arm.

A gleam of sunlight reflecting off metal catches his eyes, and he turns to see an older man, dressed in the garbs of a Templar, shift his weight from foot to foot as he surveys the marketplace. Without even meaning to, Garrett’s eyes fasten on the sigil of the Sword of Mercy, an all-too-familiar sign now after his extended hiking trip with Carver through the wilds of the Free Marches. So wrapped up in his own thoughts as he is, Garrett scarcely notices the man striding towards him and his little corner of the marketplace until it is far too late.

“You look like a man with many a question waiting to be voiced. Speak, and I will answer if I can,” the man says, his Orlesian accent thick. This close Garrett can see the faintest of gray streaks lining his hairline and a few pieces of his stubble lighter than the rest of them.

“You noticed, did you?”

“Hard not to when you are being stared at as intensely as with you.”

For a moment Garrett hesitates, his brows meeting in a frown whilst looking down at his feet, before he raises his eyes to meet the gaze of the Templar. “I was wondering if you might know of a young templar.”

The bastard has the nerve to look amused. Garrett might just actually like this one. “I cannot promise anything, but please—ask your questions.”

“He’s a mite younger-looking than me but quite surly. Black hair, blue eyes, a perpetual scowl plastered on his face, and answers anyone he doesn’t know with a pissy ‘what’,” Garrett explains. “You know him?”

“You are speaking of Carver, are you not? Maker’s breath, that man is certainly a piece of work. He a friend of yours?”

“No, younger brother.”

“Ah,” the templar cracks a grin. “My condolences.”

Garrett grins right back at the disgustingly charming man. “Appreciated.”

“Why so curious?”

“It’s been months since the family have heard anything from him. Given the situation between mages and templars, I can surely understand why he’s been so silent, but it’d be good to know that he is alive.”

“I can understand your reasoning, friend,” the templar nods. “It is so easy to get caught up with the Order that some might find it hard to actually have time to write home. If I see him, I will tell him that his older brother would like a response in the near future.”

“Did you meet him in the Marches?”

For a moment there the man looks slightly unsettled. He grimaces and runs a hand through the few tufts of hair that has escaped his ponytail. “Ah, yes. My regiment and I were sent to act as relief for those of our brothers and sisters who were already taxed with what happened in Ostwick. Your brother was alive and well enough back then to quite curtly tell all of us who to relieve of duty before he went back to delegating the rest of the relief efforts.”

“That sounds like Carver. Much appreciated.” Garrett nods in appreciation, only to shift when he hears his name called somewhere behind. “Well,” he grins sheepishly. “The missus is calling, I’d better answer. Thank you for the help, Ser.”

“No trouble at all. A good day to you.”

“And you as well.”

Garrett raises a hand as he heads back to Imra’s side, grinning from ear to ear as he grasps her hand in his and tucks it to his side.

“What has you looking like the cat that ate the canary?”

“Carver’s alive.”

Imra’s eyes widen for a moment before a smile spreads on her face as well. “I’m happy to hear that. Were you in doubt, though?”

“Nah,” Garrett’s smile only widens. “Carver’s too stubborn to die. Still, it’s nice to have your thoughts confirmed every now and then. Very cathartic.”

“If you say so,” she chuckles and runs her fingers over the back of his hand. Wordlessly he wraps it around hers and squeezes gently. “But I truly am glad to hear that he is alright.”

“I don’t know about alright. But he’s alive,” Garrett sighs. “At this point I’m just counting our small mercies.”

Imra says nothing to that. She only tightens the grip she has on his hand instead.

* * *

The wind howls outside their cabin, but inside the fire is stoked as high as can be without threatening to burn down the house, and both of them are wrapped up in multiple blankets. Moments like these are few and far between, and Garrett adores every single one of them.

Imra shifts in his arms and reaches up to cup his cheek. “Your hair is getting longer,” she notes and lets her fingers comb through the dark strands.

Garrett glances down. “Hmm—you don’t like it?”

“No, no, it’s fine,” she smiles and presses her lips to his. “I like it. Just… I’m just making an observation.”

“Well, we’ve been in hiding for quite some time, haven’t we?” he smirks at her and draws her closer, hands sneaking around beneath thei shared blankets and eventually settling on her hips. “We’re bound to change, at least just a little while, yeah?”

“I suppose,” she sighs and rests her head against his chest, one hand coming up to lie above his heart. “Change happens, no matter what we do.”

“Ain’t that the truth,” Garrett chuckles and his lips are pressed against the crown of her head.

For a moment the two of them simply sit in front of the fire, with the wind raging outside and howling against their walls, but confined within their own little bubble of warmth and comfort. Garrett doesn’t even notice it when his head begins to droop every so slightly, but before he knows it, he’s close to nodding off and wakes himself every few minutes when his head is alarmingly close to tilting down.

A soft chuckle reaches his ears and the warm, pliant form in his arms twists.

“Alright, Champion mine, time for bed.”

“Not that tired,” he slurs and fumbles for a moment as he is guided up onto his own two feet.

“Of course you’re not.”

“‘m _not_!” he vehemently argues, then curses when his toe snags on one of the legs beneath the dinner table.

“Garrett, come to bed,” Imra sighs and he feels her cup his cheek through the sleep-influenced haze he’s finding himself trapped in. “Come to bed with me.”

“But I’m not that tired…”

“Obviously. But that shouldn’t stop you from just lying down together with me, no?” she asks quite innocently, and if Garrett had been fully conscious, she would no doubt be using those big doe eyes of hers to her own advantage, he’s bloody sure of it.

Somehow she manages to wrangle him into the bed, he’s not really sure of how that happens but she does it, and before he knows it he’s reclining against battered pillows with Imra lying against his chest and the blankets piled up high around both of them.

“You happy now?” he grumbles, sleep laced thick on his voice, and cracks open a single eye to glance down at her.

It is only the faintest of light that is let in under the door, but it is just enough for him to see the outline of Imra leaning up, her arms resting against his chest, before she presses her lips to his.

For a moment it feels as if the two of them are frozen in time.

He is comfortably warm from the fire roaring in the other room, and quite cozy with the blankets around him and his not-really-wife lying on his chest and kissing him. His arms snake around her back and he clutches her as close to him as he can, an old and familiar warmth spreading now from the center of his chest and out throughout his entire body.

“With you I’m always happy,” she sighs against his lips and dives down to press against them once more, this time with her hand coming up to cup his cheek. “Always, Garrett.”

He feels the tips of her fingers scratch lightly against his beard. Her forehead then presses against his and he feels her shaky breath against his skin. “You’re the only reason I’m alive right now, I’m quite sure of that.”

There are tears in her eyes now, he can feel them drip down onto his cheeks, and Garrett raises his hands to let his thumbs wipe them away. Slowly, in the back of his mind, the sleepy air from before is lifting from his mind.

“That’s not true,” he rumbles and slowly shakes his head, dislodging her forehead from where it was pressed against his. “You’d still be alive. You’re too damn stubborn to die.”

“No,” she shakes her hand and gives him a watery smile. “Without you, or your brother for that matter, those people in the sickbay back in Ostwick, we’d all be dead if it weren’t for you.”

“Your sister would have—”

“Evelyn would have had other things to care about than the few civilians still trapped inside of that building,” Imra interrupts. “If I had been one of the people missing it would have been unfortunate but not a complete disaster. At least not for the family.”

“And what about me?”

“You’d never have known,” she sighs. “But you came and you saved me and you saved so many other people.”

“I didn’t save her, though. Evelyn,” he croaks out.

“E-Evelyn’s death—” Imra interrupts herself this time with a loud sniffle and he feels another set of tears drip down onto his cheeks. “Evelyn’s death was not your fault. It never was.”

“Wasn’t yours either.”

“I’m a healer, Garrett. Saving people is what I’m supposed to do, but I—I couldn’t even save my own sister!”

“There are some things that just can’t be fixed. Some wounds are beyond mortal means. You know that.”

“But why her? Why my sister?”

“Oh sweetling,” Garrett sighs and his arms tug her down to rest against his chest as a sob is wrenched from Imra’s throat.

“I’d say something about the Maker working in mysterious ways and that there is a method to all the madness in this bloody world, but we’d both know it’d be utter horseshit,” he huffs and tightens his grip around her. “But I do know that she would probably not want you to wallow in your grief like this. What happened to her was terrible, there’s no doubt about it, and if I could make it so that it would never have happened, then I’d bloody well _do it_ , but… fuck, Imra, it _did_ happen, and you need to accept that. I am not saying that you are not allowed to mourn or be sad whenever you think about her, but you cannot allow it to dictate your life. There are so many things for you to still discover and experience.”

Silence reigns for a few moments in the wake of his only-slightly sleep-addled speech. Outside the wind’s howling has temporarily subsided.

“How did we even get to this morbid of a topic?” Garrett grumbles and lowers his hands to instead stroke along her back. His fingers bunch up the fabric and it pools around the small of her back.

“I… I don’t know,” Imra sniffles and rubs her nose. “I really don’t know.”

She tucks her head in beneath his chin with her ear against his sternum and one hand curled above his heart. “Promise me you’ll stay with me, Garrett. Promise me,” she whispers in the darkness of their bedroom.

“There’s no need to trick oaths out of me,” he smiles and twists his head to press his lips against her forehead. “I’ll stay with you, Imra. I'll always stay with you, even when you’re sick and tired of me and my horrible manners.”

She lets out a soft noise at that and smiles, he can feel her lips twitching against his skin.

“Always,” he sighs, and allows sleep to take him.

_Always_


	20. Chapter 20

The mages strike under the cover of darkness.

It is the scent of burning wood that wakes both of them in the early hours of one morning with the sun still far from rising and the entire world still blanketed in darkness.

Something in the back of his mind tickles, insists that something is wrong.

Garrett sneezes as the scent of ash and fire sneaks into his nostrils and jerks himself awake. Blearily he glances about in their bedroom, fumbling for a moment with the blanket twisted around him and Imra’s head resting on his chest, and with a clumsy snap of his fingers the candle by their bedside lights up immediately, bathing their room in soft, warm light.

Placing the particular scent takes a moment as he blinks sleep from his eyes and wills his body to move. He dislodges Imra with a grunt and absentmindedly pats the back of her hand when she lets out a disgruntled noise at being jostled around, then stands and walks into the other room in order to look out through the window.

The sight that meets him has sleep disappear immediately.

Out there in the distance, even though the cover of darkness is still thick, he can see smoke billow and fires licking at the horizon in the direction of Crestwood.

“Garrett, what is—?”

He strides past a still-sleepy Imra with no words. Clothes are thrown on without ceremony, buckles tightened and armor that he last wore somewhere around six months ago is subtly placed on his arms and legs before being covered by warmer, wooly garments.

“Garrett?”

He looks up, sees Imra stand in her dressing gown and still rubbing away the remaining sleep from her eyes.

That sense of _wrong_ is still there, gnawing in the back of his mind.

“Imra, something’s wrong.”

“Fire?”

“It’s from the direction of the village. I don’t know what caused it, but no doubt the Templars will be all over it before long. They’ll need help in the village.”

“Do you need me to come with you?”

“No. Stay here.”

“But what if—”

“Stay. Here.”

His voice leaves no room for negotiation and he presses dry, chapped lips against her forehead. His arms wrap around her and holds her tight to his chest as his heart thunders in his chest and the sweat begins to slicken his skin. This… this is a variable that he knows nothing about and he can’t do it, can’t risk her.

Later he will blame it on madness, on folly and wanting to have at least one good memory of the two of them together if this is the last time he might ever see her again, but Garrett tips up her face and this time firmly presses his lips to hers.

Her body freezes for a moment before she registers what is happening, and she relaxes in his grasp. A soft groan escapes Imra before she can reign it in and her hands slip up to tangle themselves in his unruly hair as his does the same to her. Garrett draws back only momentarily for breath before he attacks her mouth once more, nipping at her lips and pressing with his tongue until she allows him entry, and oh Maker, but it is _glorious_. She clings to him, even as she shivers from where the cold armor presses against her skin, and Garrett only holds her tighter in response as well.

Feverishly he continues to press kisses against her lips, her cheek and then down her neck as Imra’s hands drifts down from his hair to instead curl behind his neck. She twists her head to the side and presses her own lips to the side of his face as he moves, and lets out a muffled noise when his teeth graze against her skin.

“G-Garrett,” her voice is breathy and ever-so-slightly ragged when he draws back.

“I can’t risk you. Not again.”

“This isn’t Kirkwall. You won’t risk me,” she disagrees softly and shivers when his thumb caresses her lower lip. “Garrett, I promise you, I won’t—”

“Stay,” he rasps. “ _Please_.”

The desperation in his voice is clear, the worry in his eyes even more so, and Imra finally nods after looking at him with such saddened eyes.

Once more his lips press against hers before he rushes off into the darkness with nothing but his staff, a battered sword strapped to his waist and their lantern. Imra calls out his name from behind him, but the winds twist her words until they are unrecognizable and he banishes them from his mind as he carries on, plowing through the dunes of fresh snow in the direction of Crestwood.

The village still burns by the time that he arrives.

In the darkness of early morning, Crestwood looks more like the scene of a nightmare than the sleepy village that it usually looks like. Around him he hears the screams of the villagers, the roars of the Templars and the curses from their attackers as fire flies above his head and thunder cracks in the air above him.

 _Mages_.

Of course it’s the fucking mages.

The sudden, _violent_ , blast of a Smite and the debilitating stench of magebane billowing in the air all around him has Garrett on the ground in moments. He groans and clutches at his head as the world spins dangerously fast, as the sensation of bile scorches the back of his throat, and somewhere off to the side of him someone manages to scrape together enough mana to _somehow_ send a fireball hurtling above his head, and one of the already-burning houses explode in a fiery burst of embers and destruction.

The sound of terrified people screaming inside has him curl up with his back to the destruction, the bile sour and acidic as it coats the back of his mouth and he spits into the snow on the ground, grimacing at the taste the entire time. He can hear the screams intensify in tandem with the flames, but nothing can be done—he knows that.

The scent of magebane still clogs the air that he breathes and this time he can do nothing to stop throwing up sick when he tries to raise his body up from the frozen ground. His vision turns blurry as snow and ash mixes in his eyes and the attempts to remove it with his gloved hands are thwarted by his jagged, clumsy motions. From the destruction moments before he now has a ringing deafening almost every sound around him, and once more he falls to the ground, only catching himself on his hands and knees at the last moment.

Through the fog that clouds everything around him he can see the faint outline of a tall, dark shape walking directly towards him, and with a groan he retracts from it. Before he can move anywhere Garrett yowls in pain when a metal-plated boot slams down onto his hand—the audible _crack_ that reaches his ears scant moments after sends even stronger ripples of pain running up through his arm.

Whoever just stepped on his hand slams their boot into his side and he rolls on the ground, coating both his skin and clothes in thick layers of mud and filth. Above him he hears a throaty chuckle as a hand fastens around his collar and drags him closer to whoever is leading the mages.

“Not much of a Champion now, Hawke, are you?” someone whispers into his ear, their breath stale and pungent with the stench of alcohol. “Without your fucking precious magic, you’re _nothing_!”

All he manages to retaliate with is a wobbly groan as his eyes crack open to reveal a swimming vision in front of him. His eyes cannot focus on the person in front of him and the pain radiating from his hand and up his arm is alarmingly distracting.

“To think that Anders raised you up so far, that he somehow managed to place you on a pedestal and this is what you give us in return? A man too weak to defend himself from so simple attacks!”

_Anders? What in the Maker’s name has that idiot done this time?_

He knows this voice, twisted and snarling though it may be. He knows it from when he watched a city burn for the third time in his life, when he had the lives of Carver and Imra at stake and no other help could be found.

“Thought you were dead,” Garrett spits, bile coloring the snow a muddied yellow. “You _burnt_!”

“And from the fires I was reborn,” the mage cackles. Once more he sends a firm kick into Garrett’s side, forcing him on his back and sending the man into a rough coughing fit. “My faith was strong enough. I watched you help those disgusting nobles, Hawke!” the crazed man shrieks, spittle flying everywhere and the lit husks of Crestwood’s buildings flicker. “I watched you betray your own kind for those wretches as I burnt in the fires!”

“You were killing innocent people!” Garrett cries out. It makes his throat ache and his head pound as if a million horses have trampled across his body, but, somehow, he manages to get up on his knees once more.

“Innocent?!” the man laughs. It is a manic, distraught noise. “None of those people were _innocents_! For years, decades, _centuries_ , they have simply stood by and watched as our people were oppressed and robbed of simple dignity, only because we were born as _special_! They have never done a single thing to help any of us, so why should we let them live?”

“You had a responsibility to be the best of us, to be the best of the mages, so that people will never again have reason to fear us, but you really fucked that up, didn’t you? At this point there might as well be no reason for that to ever happen, not when Ostwick is a ruin of blacked stone and Kirkwall is a fucking ruin!”

“They had it coming. They deserve every bout of pain that we can give them!”

“Even the children? Even the sick and the invalid who could do nothing to save themselves from the chaos that you spread?”

“I tire of you and your valiant speeches, _Champion_ ,” the leader spits, his face twisted by both the grimace he carries as well as the burn pulling his skin in all directions. “You can either join us here and now, or you can stay with those worthless wretches you’ve allied yourself with and perish for the good of a greater world to come!”

“Funny how I seem to attract mages with megalomania. Must be something in the blood.”

The snark is automatic, too quick to stop, and he receives a searing bolt of energy to the chest in repayment.

“I tire of this,” the mage growls and his burned face twists in a horrid expression. “You have made your choice, Hawke, and you will burn together with those who you would rather be with than your own kind.”

For a moment the mage looks almost contemplating, and Garrett feels something cold rush down his back when the man's twisted face splits in a disgusting grin. "You mentioned something being in your blood... yes, yes— _YES_!"

He raises his hand and Garrett roars in agony as he feels the blood inside of him begin to swell, to burn, until everything is black and dark and he is left in blessed silence.


End file.
